AMERICAN   CRISIS  BIOGRAPHIES 

Edited  by 

Ellis  Paxson  Obcrholtzer,  Ph.  D. 


Hmerfcan  Crisis  Biographies 

Edited  by  Ellis  Paxson  Oberholtzer,  Ph.D.  With  the 
counsel  and  advice  of  Professor  John  B.  McMaster,  of 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

Each  iamo,  cloth,  with  frontispiece  portrait.  Price 
$1.25  net;  by  mail,  $1.37. 

These  biographies  will  constitute  a  complete  and  comprehensive 
history  of  the  great  American  sectional  struggle  in  the  form  of  readable 
and  authoritative  biography.  The  editor  has  enlisted  the  co-operation 
of  many  competent  writers,  as  will  be  noted  from  the  list  given  below. 
An  interesting  feature  of  the  undertaking  is  that  the  series  is  to  be  im 
partial,  Southern  writers  having  been  assigned  to  Southern  subjects  and 
Northern  writers  to  Northern  subjects,  but  all  will  belong  to  the  younger 
generation  of  writers,  thus  assuring  freedom  from  any  suspicion  of  war 
time  prejudice.  The  Civil  War  will  not  be  treated  as  a  rebellion,  but  as 
the  great  event  in  the  history  of  our  nation,  which,  «fter  forty  years,  it 
is  now  clearly  recognized  to  have  been. 

Now  ready : 

Abraham  Lincoln.     By  ELLIS  PAXSON  OBERHOLTZER. 
Thomas  H.  Benton.     By  JOSEPH  M.  ROGERS. 
David  G.  Farragut.      By  JOHN  R.  SPEARS. 
William  T.  Sherman.      By  EDWARD  ROBINS. 
Frederick  Douglass.      By  BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON. 
Judah  P.  Benjamin.      By  PIERCE  BUTLER. 
Robert  E.  Lee.     By  PHILIP  ALEXANDER  BRUCE. 
Jefferson  Davis.     By  PROF.  W.  E.  DODD. 
Alexander  H.  Stephens.      BY  Louis  PENDLETON. 
John  C.  Calhoun.     By  GAILLARD  HUNT. 
•'  Stonewall"  Jackson.     By  HENRY  ALEXANDER  WHITE. 
John  Brown.     By  W.  E.  BURGHARDT  DUBOIS. 
Charles  Sumner.     By  PROF.  GEORGE  H.  HJWNES. 
Henry  Clay.     By  THOMAS  H.  CLAY. 
William  H.  Seward.     By  EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE,  Jr. 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.     By  PROF.  HENRY  PARKER  WILLIS. 
William  Lloyd  Garrison.     By  LINDSAY  SWIFT. 

In  preparation : 

Daniel  Webster.     By  PROF.  FREDERIC  A.  OGG. 
Thaddeus  Stevens.     By  PROF.  J.  A.  WOODBURN. 
Andrew  Johnson.      By  PROF.  WALTER  L.  FLEMING. 
Ulysses  S.  Grant.     By  PROF.  FRANKLIN  S.  EDMONDS. 
Edwin  M.  Stanton.     By  EDWARD  S.  CORWIN. 
Robert  Toombs.     By  PROF.  U.  B.  PHILLIPS. 
Jay  Cooke.     By  ELLIS  PAXSON  OBERHOLTZER. 


1 


AMERICAN  CRISIS  BIOGRAPHIES 


WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

by 

LINDSAY  SWIFT 

Author  of  "  Benjamin  Franklin/'  etc. 


PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE  W.  JACOBS  &  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,  1911,  BY 
GEORGE  W.  JACOBS  &  COMPANY 
Published  May, 


ALL  rights  reserved 
Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


To 

EDWIN  MUNROE  BACON 

My  Friend  Through  All  Fortunes 
This  Book 

is 
Affectionately  Dedicated 


229431 


PREFACE 

THIS,  like  prefaces  in  general,  is  mostly  an 
itemized  acknowledgment  of  indebtedness.  My 
first  and  pleasant  duty  is  to  state  that  this  book  is 
written  conjointly  with  my  friend,  Henry  Burro wes 
Lathrop,  Associate  Professor  of  English  in  the 
University  of  Wisconsin.  The  original  agreement 
with  the  publishers  does  not,  to  my  regret,  allow  me 
to  link  his  name  with  mine  on  the  title  page.  Two 
years  ago,  when  the  work  was  due  and  the  general 
editor  was  courteously  pressing  me  for  the  manu 
script,  I  failed  suddenly  in  health.  Professor 
Lathrop  then  kindly  offered  to  share  a  burden  which 
I  could  not  have  borne  alone.  That  the  book  at 
last  appears  at  all  is  due  to  his  generous  aid  and  his 
ability  to  compass  a  task  by  no  means  easy.  Each 
has  so  freely  criticized  the  other  that  the  entire  work 
is  really  an  expression  of  two  minds  working  in 
reasonable  harmony  ;  but  it  is  fair  to  my  associate 
for  me  to  say  that  the  last  part  is  practically  of  his 
writing,  while  the  first  eight  chapters  and  the  final 
chapter  are  mine.  Such  is  my  gratitude  to  Professor 
Lathrop,  that  I  sincerely  hope  we  may  share  the 
praise,  if  any  is  given,  and  that  all  shortcomings 
will  be  laid  at  my  door. 

Another  deep  obligation  is  to  the  monumental  life 
of  Garrison  written  by  two  of  his  sons.  The  young- 


8  PREFACE 

est  and  surviving  son,  Francis  Jackson  Garrison, 
besides  giving  me  many  helpful  suggestions,  has 
generously  encouraged  me  to  make  the  freest  use  of 
this  important  contribution  to  American  biography. 
It  is  possible  that  I  have  availed  myself  too  largely 
of  this  permission.  If  the  present  book  shall  tempt 
others  and  especially  a  younger  generation  to  read 
the  four  volumes  of  this  filial  tribute  to  a  noble, 
interesting  and  commanding  character,  it  will  not 
have  been  a  vain  task  for  Mr.  Lathrop  and  myself 
to  have  written  it. 

The  manuscript  has,  to  my  great  satisfaction  and 
peace  of  mind,  passed  under  the  critical  inspection 
of  two  friends,  Mr.  Edwin  M.  Bacon  and  Miss  Mary 
H.  Rollins,  who  have  my  deep  thanks. 

It  would  be  ungracious  to  omit  a  word  of  gratitude 
for  the  help,  impersonal  to  be  sure  but  no  less  real, 
received  from  the  collections  of  the  Boston  Public 
Library  and  especially  from  the  anti- slavery  archives 
therein  deposited  mainly  by  the  Garrison  family. 

I  cannot  pretend  that  I  have  burrowed  deep  in 
* '  original  sources. ' '  Exhaustive  research  in  hitherto 
untouched  documents  and  manuscripts  was  not  nec 
essary  to  the  formation  of  a  fairly  clear  estimate. 
There  are  singularly  few  historical  tangles  in  the 
annals  of  Anti-slavery  and  Abolitionism,  and  printed 
books,  many  of  them,  however,  now  forgotten,  have 
served  our  purpose. 

The  son  of  a  Free-Soiler  and  early  Republican,  I 
entered  upon  the  task  with  a  feeling  that  Garrison's 
career  might  fail,  in  many  respects,  to  satisfy  one 
having  such  an  inheritance.  But  as  the  work  grew 


PEEPACE  9 

apace,  most,  though  not  all,  of  the  doubts  fell  away 
and  I  came  to  see  that  the  character  of  the  man  and 
the  part  he  played  in  the  vast  drama  of  the  niid- 
nineteenth  century  in  this  country,  had  triumphed 
over  the  misgivings  which  had  at  first  beset  me.  I 
had  insensibly  reverted  to  the  convictions  of  my 
paternal  grandparents,  uncompromising  Abolition 
ists  and  Methodist  "  Gome-outers,"  and  I  was  able 
to  see  with  their  eyes  as  well  as  with  my  own  that 
Garrison  and  such  as  they  who  in  a  large  measure 
followed  him,  were  guided  by  eternal  verities  aud 
not  by  policy.  Whether  they  were  right  or  wrong- 
is  not  the  question.  I  have  come  by  slow  processes 
to  satisfy  my  own  reasoning  that  they  were  sincere, 
and  that  they  were  necessary  instruments  in  a  great 
undertaking.  Toward  this  conclusion  my  partner 
in  the  task  happily  needed  no  persuasion. 


CONTENTS 

CHRONOLOGY 13 

I.    THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION    .        .  17 

II.     THE  TENTATIVE  YEARS      ...  46 

III.  EDITOR  AND  PAMPHLETEER        .        .  70 

IV.  THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL      .  98 
V.     A  PROVINCIAL  MOB    .        .        .        .121 

VI.     A  KIFT  WITHIN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE  142 

VII.    AN  AWAKENING  PEOPLE    .        .        .163 

VIII.     A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF  180 

IX.     THE  INFIDEL  GARRISON     .        .        .  208 

X.    THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  DISUNION  SENTI 
MENT        239 

XI.    TEXAS  AND  THE  MEXICAN  WAR         .  258 
XII.    THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE     .        .272 

XIII.  THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT  .        .  308- 

XIV.  LAST  YEARS 350 

XV.    THE  SUMMING  UP-    THE  OUTCOME     .  371 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 387 

INDEX  391 


CHRONOLOGY 

1805 — December  10th,  born  in  New  bury  port,  Mass.,  of  Abijah 
and  Frances  Maria  (Lloyd)  Garrison. 

1814— Apprenticed  to  Gamaliel  W.  Oliver,  shoemaker,  in  Lynn, 
Mass. 

1815 — Removes,  by  sea,  with  his  mother,  to  Baltimore. 
1816 — Returns  to  Newburyport. 

1818 — Apprenticed  to  Moses  Short,  cabinet-maker,  Haverhill, 
Mass.  Runs  away,  is  recovered,  and  finally  discharged, 
returning  to  Newburyport.  Apprenticed  to  Ephraim  W^ 
Allen,  editor  of  the  Newburyport  Herald. 

1822 — Begins  to  write,  anonymously,  for  the  Herald. 
1823— September  3d,  death  of  his  mother.    •£/: 
1825— End  of  his  apprenticeship. 

1826 — Editor  and  publisher  of  the  Free  Press,  Newburyport. 
Meets  John  Greenleaf  Whittier.  To  Boston  in  search  of 
employment. 

1827 — Compositor  in  Boston. 

1828 — Editor  of  the  National  Philanthropist.  First  meeting  in 
Boston  with  Benjamin  Lundy,  anti-slavery  advocate. 
Begins  editing  the  Journal  of  the  Times  at  Bennington, 
Vt.,  in  support  of  John  Quincy  Adams. 

1829 — Returns  to  Boston  ;  rooms  with  Whittier.  Delivers  his 
first  public  address  against  slavery  at  the  Park  Street 
church.  Goes  to  Baltimore  as  co-editor  of  Lnndy's 
paper.  First  proclaims  that  slaves  are  entitled  to  ' '  im 
mediate  and  complete  emancipation." 

1830— Tried  for  .  ibel  against  Francis  Todd  and  committed  to 
Baltimore  jail.  Released,  returns  to  Boston.  Issues 
prospectus  for  Public  Liberator  and  Journal  of  the  Times  to 
be  issued  in  Washington.  Delivers  anti-slavery  ad 
dresses. 


1^  4CHEONOLOGY 

1831 — January  1st,  first  issue  of  the  Liberator. 

1832— The  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society  formed,  the  first 
organization  in  the  Garrison  movement.  Publishes 
"Thoughts  on  African  Colonization." 

1833 — Meets  his  future  wife,  Helen  Eliza  Benson,  in  Provi 
dence,  K.  I.  Visits  England.  Indicted  for  libel  in  con 
nection  with  Prudence  Crandall  case.  Drafts  Declaration 
of  Sentiments  at  formation  of  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society  in  Philadelphia. 

1834 — September  4th,  married.  George  Thompson  arrives  from 
England. 

1835— Burned  in  effigy  at  Charleston,  S.  C.  Gallows  erected 
before  his  house  in  Boston.  Victim  of  the  "respectable  " 
mob  in  Boston  ;  committed  to  Leverett  street  jail  over 
night.  Dissolves  partnership  with  Knapp  on  the  Lib 
erator. 

1836— Visits  John  Quincy  Adams.  Attacked  by  "Clerical 
Appeal." 

1838 — Present  at  the  mobbing  and  destruction  of  Pennsylvania 
Hall,  Philadelphia.  Helps  organize  Non-Resistance  So 
ciety  in  Boston. 

1840 — Schism  in  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  over  member 
ship  of  women  and  duty  of  political  action.  Goes  to 
England  to  attend  World's  Anti-Slavery  Convention  in 
London,  but  refuses  to  take  part  in  the  convention  be 
cause  women  delegates  are  excluded.  Attends  Chardon 
Street  Convention,  Boston. 

1841— Tour  in  White  Mountains  with  N.  P.  Rogers. 
1842— First  intimation  of  disunion  policy. 

1843 — Declares  the  pro-slavery  compact  of  the  Constitution  "  a 
covenant  with  Death  and  an  agreement  with  Hell." 

1844— American  Anti-Slavery  Society  adopts  bis  policy  of  "No 
Union  with  Slaveholders." 

1845 — Delegate  to  Anti-Texas  convention  n  Faneuil  Hal  , 
Boston. 

1846 — Goes  to  England  on  invitation  of  the  Glasgow  Emancipa 
tion  Society.  Helps  form  Anti-Slavery  League  in 
London. 


CHKONOLOGY  15 

1847— Makes  his  first  Western  tour.  Is  attacked  with  fever  in 
Cleveland,  O. 

1848— Calls  Anti-Sabbath  Convention  in  Boston. 
1849— Presents  address  to  Father  Mathew  in  Boston. 

1850 — Witnesses  mobbing,  by  Rynders's  gang,  of  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society  anniversary  meeting  in  New  York. 
Present  at  reception  to  and  mobbing  of  George  Thompson 
in  Faneuil  Hall. 

1853 — Mobbed  at  Bible  Convention,  Hartford,  Conn.  Second 
Western  tour.  Visits  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  at 
Andover,  Mass. 

1854 — Burns  the  Constitution  in  public  at  Frainingham,  Mass., 
July  4th. 

1857 — Meets  John  Brown  at  Theodore  Parker's  house.  At 
Worcester  (Mass.)  disunion  convention.  Joins  call  for 
Cleveland  (Ohio)  disunion  convention. 

1863 — Celebrates  Emancipation  Proclamation,  in  Boston,  Jan 
uary  1st.  At  celebration  in  Philadelphia  of  thirtieth 
anniversary  of  American  Anti-Slavery  Society. 

1864 — Has  an  interview  with  President  Lincoln. 

1865 — Celebrates  adoption  of  the  constitutional  amendment 
abolishing  slavery.  With  George  Thompson  at  the  rais 
ing  of  the  flag  over  Fort  Sumter.  Receives  ovation  from 
freedmen.  Resigns  presidency  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  May  10th.  Issues  the  last  number  of 
the  Liberator,  December  29th. 

1867 — Sails  for  London  with  George  Thompson.  Meets  John 
Bright.  Breakfast  in  his  honor  in  London.  Speeches 
by  John  Bright,  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  Earl  Russell,  John 
Stuart  Mill  and  George  Thompson.  Presented  with  the 
freedom  of  the  city  of  Edinburgh.  Attends  International 
Anti-Slavery  Conference  in  Paris  as  delegate  from 
American  Freedmen's  Union.  Visits  Switzerland. 

1868 — Presented  with  a  national  testimonial  of  thirty-one 
thousand  dollars. 

1875— Celebrates  his  seventieth  birthday  by  setting  type  in  the 
Newburyport  Herald  office. 

1876— Death  of  Mrs.  Garrison,  January  25th. 


16  CHRONOLOGY 

1877 — Goes  to  England  on  his  fifth  and  final  visit.  Last  meet 
ing  with  Thompson. 

1878— Sets  type  in  Newburyport  Herald  office  on  sixtieth  anni 
versary  of  his  apprenticeship,  October  13th.  Dinner  in 
his  honor  given  by  the  New  England  Franklin  Club  (of 
master  printers),  Boston,  October  14th. 

1879 — Opposes  the  Chinese  exclusion  policy.  Dies  in  New 
York,  May  24th.  Buried  at  Forest  Hills  Cemetery, 
Boston. 

1885-89— Story  of  His  Life,  Told  by  His  Children,  issued  in  four 
volumes. 

1886 — Olin  L.  Warner's  bronze  statue  of  Garrison  erected  on 
Commonwealth  Avenue,  Boston. 

1905— Celebration  of  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  his  birth, 
in  Boston  and  elsewhere. 


WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION 

THE  writer  who  essays  the  life  of  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  and  somewhat  of  its  relations  to  and  its  ef 
fect  upon  the  national  life,  is  not  obliged  to  trace 
the  black  and  melancholy  current  of  slavery  from 
its  beginnings  on  this  continent  down  to  the  mo 
ment  when  he  set  forth  to  stem  it.  Furthermore, 
except  in  a  brief  and  perhaps  cursory  way,  it  is  not 
desirable  to  record  the  names  of  those  who  before 
his  time  were  roused  to  utterance  on  this  momen 
tous  subject;  for,  to  the  end  of  his  career,  in  a 
strange  and  impressive  manner  he  stood  aloof  from 
the  influences,  political  and  social,  which  usually 
merge  the  efforts  even  of  men  of  marked  ability  and 
force  into  the  general  channels  of  united  purpose. 
Were  it  not  for  Emerson  and  John  Brown,  he  might 
almost  be  called  the  one  successful  American  indi 
vidualist  of  his  day  and  generation.  To  a  much 
greater  degree  than  even  Lincoln  did  he  force  is 
sues,  and  combat  apparently  irresistible  opposition. 
It  was  not  his  policy  to  cherish  hopes  and  bide  his 
time.  He  slept  with  his  armor  on,  and  was  ready 


18  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEEISON 

to  do  battle  without  strategy  or  negotiation.  This 
program  was  absolutely  devoid  of  qualification  or 
allowance  for  circumstances  of  time  or  inherited 
conditions.  "  Immediate  emancipation  "  was  early 
blazoned  on  his  standards  ;  his  close  followers  were 
relatively  few,  and  with  some  astonishing  excep 
tions,  of  slight  importance  in  the  world's  eyes.  Yet 
his  cause  prospered,  though  surely  not  in  a  way  that 
he  could  have  foreseen,  else  had  he,  a  non-resistant 
by  profession,  forsaken  a  path  leading  in  thirty 
years  to  a  strife  which  threatened  the  destruction  of 
one  of  the  dearest  hopes  of  humanity — the  existence 
of  nearly  twoscore  sovereignties  united  under  a 
common  democratic  government.  He  helped  to 
precipitate  controversies  demanding  for  their  settle 
ment  a  force  and  an  authority  which  he  had  never 
been  willing  to  recognize.  Strangest  of  all,  in  his 
desperate  policy,  he  found  his  strongest  allies  in  his 
bitterest  enemies.  His  theory  of  secession  was 
loftier  than  that  of  the  South,  but  it  was  no  less  dis 
obedient  to  a  man-contrived  central  government. 

Furthermore,  though  he  came  to  repudiate  the 
established  forms  and  concrete  practices  of  religion, 
his  career  had  been  an  impossibility  without  the 
fervor  and  single-heartedness  derived  from  an  ab 
sorption  of  the  Word  of  God  as  his  simple  educa 
tion  and  his  essentially  Protestant  and  individual 
faith  led  him  to  interpret  it.  His  speech  and  writ  ings 
are  full  of  the  far-seeing  and  fervent  zeal  of  the  Old 
Testament  prophets — he  delighted  in  phrases  which 
would  have  been  cant  in  the  mouth  of  another.  If 
Jeremiah  and  Isaiah  were  inspired,  so  without  pro* 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION          19 

faneness  may  we  say  that  Garrison  was  inspired  ; 
for  he,  like  them,  was  free  from  fanaticism,  how 
ever  harsh  his  eomniinations  of  the  weak,  irresolute, 
and  indifferent.  And  during  all  his  life  he  was,  in 
the  main  elements  of  character,  completely  sane — 
sane  as  few  men  have  been  who  possessed  genius  in 
the  same  measure  as  he.  Uncomfortable  streaks  of 
oddity  may  be  found,  and  must  be  spoken  of  when 
necessary,  but  as  a  whole  he  was  well-rounded  and 
self-restrained — a  normal  man. 

To  rehearse  without  bitterness,  yet  fearlessly,  the 
story  of  this  life,  in  its  wider  aspects,  is  not  the 
easiest  of  tasks,  for  Garrison  exasperated  a  nation, 
already  stung  to  a  sense  of  its  shortcomings,  as  no 
man  in  recent  times  has  had  the  power  or  the  oppor 
tunity  to  do.  To-day,  as  through  his  whole  career, 
there  is  still  open  disapproval  of  or  silent  dissent 
from  his  extremes.  Descendants  of  those  whom  he 
opposed  in  religion  and  reform  seem  to  have  in 
herited  distrust  or  dislike.  Probably  the  South  is 
fairest  of  all  to  him,  for  he  was  only  a  part  of  the 
inevitable  catastrophe  which  overwhelmed  but  did 
not  crush  her.  Near  home  the  memories  are  per 
sonal  and  often  bitter.  Fortunately  there  are  no 
vexing  controversies,  except  over  negligible  details, 
in  the  anti-slavery  story  as  a  whole.  The  view 
taken  of  it  depends  upon  the  interpretation  of  es 
tablished  facts  and  not  upon  the  disentanglement  of 
complicated  annals.  Much  may  advisedly  be 
omitted  and  still  enough  will  be  left  on  which  to 
base  a  personal  opinion.  It  will  be  many  years  yet 
before  the  mass  of  events  shall  have  crystallized 


20  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

into  a  clear  product,  with  many  facets  perhaps,  yet 
uniform  and  coherent  to  a  later  historic  observation. 
' '  Who  is  this  Mr.  Garrison  ?  Did  not  Lay  and 
Sandiford,  Wooirnan  and  Benezet,  Jay  and  Frank 
lin,  advocate  the  slavery  cause  before  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  was  heard  of?"  Thus,  in  1852, 
asks  Eichard  D.  Webb,  one  of  the  most  intrepid  of 
the  Irish  Abolitionists,  in  order  to  answer  his  own 
questioning  according  to  the  spirit  of  his  times.  It 
is  now  nearly  sixty  years  later,  but  these  questions 
still  arise  and  must  be  answered,  however  briefly,  if 
the  great  problem  which  vexed  the  country  some 
what  in  its  earliest  days,  harassed  its  peace  of 
mind  mightily  for  thirty  years,  and  shook  its 
foundations  for  four  years,  is  to  be  fairly  con 
sidered,  and  its  foremost  agitator  honestly  inter 
preted.  So  evident  a  fact  as  the  existence  of 
earlier  Abolitionists  need  not  impair  or  disturb 
the  sure  reputation  of  Garrison.  To  approach, 
now,  this  matter  of  priority,  it  may  be  well  to  get  a 
little  further  taste  of  Mr.  Webb's  opinion,  written 
with  the  stress  and  feeling  characteristic  of  its 
period.  It  summarizes  the  situation  toward  which 
Garrison  had  then  striven  persistently  for  more 
than  twenty  years.  * l  Before  he  commenced  his 
career,  the  whole  nation  was  sunk  in  apathy  re 
specting  it  [the  slavery  question].  He  was  com 
pelled  then,  nolens  volens,  to  take  it  up,  and  now 
they  cannot  lay  it  down  (although  it  burns  their 
fingers  dreadfully)  until  it  has  been  settled  in  one 
way  or  another.  It  is  the  question  upon  which 
the  fate  of  the  parties,  the  election  of  Presidents,  and 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION          21 

the  existence  of  the  republic  depend.  It  mixes  it 
self  up  with  every  public  question,  and  overshadows 
them  all.  Slavery  knows  she  is  engaged  in  a 
struggle  for  existence,  and  the  battle  is  fought  with 
all  the  fury  of  desperation.  This  agitation  dashes 
sects  and  parties  to  pieces.  It  troubles  synods, 
conferences,  yearly  meetings,  political  conventions. 
It  cries  to  the  nation,  i  Sleep  no  more  ! '  All  whose 
property,  policy,  pelf,  and  sectarian  tranquillity 
are  invaded,  lay  the  blame  at  Mr.  Garrison's  door. 
No  wonder  they  are  l  grieved,'  l  irritated,'  and  *  in 
dignant'  with  him." 

Let  it  be  understood  at  the  outset  that  whatever 
is  said  of  the  slavery  question  of  three  generations 
ago  deals  with  a  tale  that  is  told,  and  not  with  a  dis 
cussion  still  vexing  intellect  and  conscience  on  each 
side  of  the  great  imaginary  line  which  once  divided 
North  and  South,  but  which  is  well-nigh  forgotten, 
even  to  the  name. 

Any  discussion  as  to  whether  Garrison  was  the 
nursing  father  of  an  an ti- slavery  movement  in  this 
country  must  be  largely  academic.  It  is  possible 
and  even  necessary  to  show  that  before  his  day  there 
were  others  who  felt  as  strongly  perhaps  as  he  that 
slavery  was  not  only  an  unwelcome  curse,  but  also 
a  burden  and  a  menace.  With  few  exceptions, 
they  who  abominated  the  institution  took  the  hu 
manitarian  view,  or  the  religious  view,  or  almost 
any  position  less  uncompromising,  less  violent  in 
its  demand  than  the  inviolate,  crystal  clear  idealism 
of  "William  Lloyd  Garrison.  He  certainly  more 
than  any  man  gave  impetus,  and  then  motion  to  a 


22  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

decidedly  inert  though  actually  existent  mass  of 
public  opinion.  But  he  did  not  discover  slavery, 
and  must  take  his  high  place  in  the  honorable  suc 
cession  of  those  who  also  bore  the  torch  and  passed 
it  on.  "The  country  is  awake  to  the  dangers  of 
slavery,"  wrote  Jeremiah  Evarts,  father  of  the  late 
William  M.  Evarts,  in  1820  ;  and  three  years  later 
Royal  Washburn  sent  forth  the  cry  from  Andover 
Seminary  :  "  Now  thousands  call  the  men  of  Africa 
brethren  ;  thousands  are  willing  to  devote  their 
money  and  their  efforts  to  redeem  them  from  their 
long  captivity." 

Even  before  Woolinau  and  Beuezet  and  Franklin, 
there  were  others  who  deplored  the  sin  of  slavery, 
its  consequent  immoralities  and  its  injustices.  But 
after  all  is  said,  in  an  age  of  indentured  servitude 
the  feeling  against  a  still  worse  social  status  could 
hardly  be  called  acute.  There  was  no  cloud  of 
witnesses  to  the  truth — only  those  intelligent  and 
sensitized  few  who  are  not  bound  in  any  age  to  its 
conventions  or  its  self -exculpations. 

Notwithstanding  the  occasional  protest  of  earlier 
days,  it  is  essential,  in  any  estimate  of  slavery  as  it 
once  existed,  both  North  and  South,  to  remember 
that  domestic  service,  mostly  indoors,  was  not,  even 
though  unrequited,  the  same  in  kind  as  drudgery 
in  plantations  and  rice-fields  under  conditions 
hard  at  the  best,— intolerable,  indeed,  but  for  the 
physiological  capacity  of  the  plantation  negro  to  en 
dure  life  in  almost  tropical  swamps,  and  for  his 
temperamental  inertness,  from  which  even  cruelty 
could  not  extort  more  than  a  certain  average  mini- 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION         23 

mum  of  performance.  All  this  being  so,  it  is  inter 
esting  to  note  that  while  much  has  been  said  and 
written  of  the  careless,  easy-going,  and,  at  times, 
fatuously  happy  slave-life  in  the  South,  with  its 
songs,  dances,  merrymakings,  and  religious  ecsta 
sies,  there  is  no  such  tradition  of  gaiety  among  those 
in  as  real  if  not  as  onerous  bondage  in  the  North. 
Like  master,  like  man,  perhaps  the  case  was — for 
hilarity  was  not  conspicuous  in  the  northern  Amer 
ican  Colonies,  and  such  undoubted  good  humor  as 
Franklin,  for  instance,  possessed,  was  seemingly  rare. 
If  down  South  the  whip  was  cracked,  the  laugh 
also  went  round,  especially  at  Christmas  and  other 
seasons  of  merrymaking,  while  farther  North,  al 
though  there  may  have  been  little  or  practically  no 
physical  brutality,  there  was  certainly  almost  no 
joyousness — certainly  no  Cnristmas  ;  for  a  long  time 
that  festive  season  had  no  admitted  existence  in 
some  of  the  Colonies. 

It  must  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  customs  of 
the  world  were,  in  a  large  measure,  the  customs  of 
the  early  colonists,  who  were  by  no  means  cut  off 
from  the  influence  of  European  civilization.  There 
was  toleration  of  slavery  everywhere.  Even  the 
greatest  English  Queen  had  a  hand  in  the  slave- 
trade,  although  it  is  believed  that  she  did  not  wholly 
approve  her  own  conduct.  It  was  possible  for  Sir 
John  Hawkins  to  have  prayers  of  unusual  fervor  on 
the  upper  deck,  while  the  hold  was  full  of  stifling 
black  humanity  packed  in  as  no  cattle  would  be 
packed  to-day — in  fact,  slaves  were  cattle  to  the 
Christian  of  those  times.  Even  the  wonderful  Sir 


24  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEEISON 

Francis  Brake,  generally  as  humane  as  he  was 
brave,  had  his  share  in  the  horrible  traffic.  Only  a 
few  years  after  this  period,  the  colonists  began  to 
conie  into  English  America,  bringing  old- world  tra 
dition  and  inheritance.  Yet  in  every  age  there 
have  been  a  few  who  have  had  quicker  consciences, 
greater  discernment  than  the  many — the  morally 
superior  outstripping,  like  the  intellectually  supe 
rior,  their  own  generation.  As  early  as  1641  the 
General  Court  of  Assistants  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bay  enacted  in  the  " Body  of  Liberties"  that  sla 
very  should  not  exist  in  the  colony,  except  in  the 
case  of  captives  of  war.  Notwithstanding  this 
stand  of  authority,  some  slaves  were  held  in  the 
Puritan  colony.  Koger  Williams  was  the  first 
American  to  inveigh  agaiust  the  enslavement  of 
man,  in  this  instance  of  captive  Indians.  Some 
years  later  John  Eliot,  u  Apostle  to  the  Indians," 
showed  humanitarian  views,  mingled  with  an  out 
weighing  concern  for  souls  removed  by  enslavement 
from  i  i  all  means  of  grace. ' 7 

"The  Selling  of  Joseph"  was  the  expression  of 
the  humane  and  honorable  Chief -Justice  Samuel 
Sewall.  Penitent  for  his  attitude  in  the  witch  trials, 
he  made  occasion,  as  the  eighteenth  century  was 
opening,  to  state  his  belief  that  the  slave-trade  and 
the  holding  of  human  beings  as  property  were  evils, 
and  that  "no  one  ought  to  deprive  others  of 
[liberty],  but  upon  most  extreme  consideration." 
Chief -justices  of  Massachusetts,  however,  are  not 
often  radical  in  their  actions  or  their  tendencies,  and 
one  must  regard  his  tract  as  only  a  little  more 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION          26 

humanitarian  than  the  rather  low  level  of  objection 
to  slavery  made  at  that  time  on  the  ground  that 
slaves  were  not  an  economical  device. 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  clearer  or  aji  earlier  in 
stance  of  the  general  state  of  mind,  as  to  the  moral 
side  of  the  matter,  than  is  to  be  seen  in  the  Boston 
News  Letter,  for  June  10,  1706.  According  to  the 
previous  year's  bill  of  mortality  in  that  good  town, 
there  was  record  of  the  death  of  forty -four  negroes, 
"  which  being  computed  one  with  another  at  £30 
per  Head,  amounts  to  the  Sum  of  One  Thousand 
three  hundred  and  twenty  Pounds,  of  which  we  would 
make  the  Eemark  ;  That  the  Importing  of  Negroes 
into  this  or  the  Neighboring  Provinces  is  not  so 
beneficial  either  to  the  Crown  or  Country,  as  White 
Servants  would  be. ' '  The  writer  goes  on  to  show 
that  negroes  cannot  use  firearms,  that  they  are  gen 
erally  eye-servants  and  great  thieves,  and  that  they 
do  not  people  the  country  ;  for  this  reason  he  argues 
that  many  husbandmen,  unable  to  invest  forty  or 
fifty  pounds  for  a  negro,  might  by  an  increased  im 
portation  of  whites,  be  furnished  with  servants  for 
"  eight,  nine  or  ten  pounds  per  Head."  "If  the 
White  Servant  die,  the  Loss  exceeds  not  £10,  but  if 
a  Negro  dies,  'tis  a  very  great  loss."  Furthermore, 
in  case  of  enemies,  a  negro  cannot  be  sent  against 
them,  but  "if  he  [the  husbandman]  has  a  White 
Servant,  'twill  answer  the  end,"  and  perhaps  "save 
his  Son  at  home."  His  conclusion  is  that  in  one 
year  "the  Town  of  Boston  has  lost  £1,320  in 
44  negroes,  which  is  also  a  loss  to  the  Country  in 
general ;  for  a  less  Loss  of  a  £1,000  the  country 


26  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

may  have  500  men  in  five  years'  time  for  the  44 
Negroes  dead  in  one  year."  It  was,  as  is  plain,  a 
purely  economic  question.  Negroes,  especially  dead 
negroes,  did  not  pay.  One  hundred  and  fifty  years 
later  it  required  a  long  and  costly  war  to  demon 
strate  that  free  labor  was  more  profitable  than  slave 
labor,  but  by  that  time  elements  other  than  the 
purely  economic  fully  entered  into  the  settlement. 
A  more  cold-blooded  consideration  of  any  topic 
than  this  deliberate  taking  up  of  the  relative  com 
mercial  value  of  two  sorts  of  human  flesh  it  would 
not  be  easy  to  find.  The  judicial  Sewall  and  the 
gentle-souled  Woolman  surely  had  stony  ground  on 
which  to  make  an  early  planting  of  humane  ideas 
— not  the  less  stony  because  theirs  was  an  age 
of  undoubted  formal  piety.  In  the  News  Letter 
argument  we  find  not  a  suggestion  of  an  early  senti 
ment  foretelling  the  advent  in  the  fulness  of  time  of 
the  fierce  evangelism  of  Garrison. 

Sixty  years  later  Nathaniel  Appleton  had  the 
hardihood  to  condemn  in  toto  slavery  and  the  im 
portation  of  slaves,  but  like  Sewall  he  made  no  pro 
fession  of  regarding  negroes  as  on  terms  of  equality 
with  whites. 

Each  generation  of  Puritan  civilization  seems  to 
have  kept  alive  a  belief  that  human  bondage  was  an 
evil,  but  no  violent  proposal  was  made  to  do  away 
with  it.  The  Society  of  Friends  have  a  livelier 
record  of  opposition,  though  the  ground  of  this  op 
position  in  each  sect  was  religious  and  based  on  the 
teachings  of  both  Testaments.  John  Hepburn  of 
New  Jersey  as  early  as  1714  made  his  protest 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION         27 

against  the  "miserable  effects"  produced  by  the 
slavery  of  negroes.  Even  before  this,  in  1688,  the 
Germantown  Mennonites,  affiliated  with  the  Quakers, 
had  issued  the  "  first  distinctly  anti  slavery  docu 
ment  in  America,"  l  and  five  years  later  George  Keith 
opposed  the  surrender  of  fugitive  slaves.  After 
Hepburn  came  William  Burling,  Elihu  Colemau, 
Ealph  Sandiford  and  Benjamin  Lay — all  before 
1750.  The  two  latter  men  were  associates  of  Frank 
lin  while  he  was  laying  the  foundation  of  his  sub 
stantial  fortune  in  the  printing  office  from  which 
their  efforts  were  put  forth.  The  assaults  of  Lay 
and  Hepburn  on  Christian  apologists  for  slavery  vie 
with  Garrison's  choicest  epithets  against  the  clergy. 
In  contrast  with  these  rather  turbulent  pamphlet 
eers  appear  the  names  of  the  Huguenot  Anthony 
Benezet  and  John  Woolrnau,  the  latter  a  precursor 
on  foot  of  the  indomitable  Lundy — both  gentle  by 
nature  and  appealing  to  the  good  in  humanity 
instead  of  rousing  the  evil,  but  both  without 
fear,  however  conciliatory.  Woolman,  in  his  call 
ing  of  itinerant  preacher,  did  not  hesitate  to  re 
monstrate  when  he  saw  the  abuses  of  slaveholding 
in  the  South.  Emancipation,  but  not  of  a  sudden, 
ill-considered  kind,  seems  to  have  been  the  ob 
jective  point  of  the  Quakers  as  a  whole,  in  the  ex 
pression  of  their  anti-slavery  principles.  "Before 
the  close  of  the  Eevolutionary  War,  slavery  had  been 
practically  abandoned  by  the  Quakers  of  the  North 
ern  and  Middle  states."  2  By  1788  substantially  j 

1  Anti-Slavery  in  America,  1619-1808,  Mary  S.  Locke,  p.  24. 
3  Ibid.,  p.  36. 


28  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARBISOtf 

all  slaves  owned  by  them  in  Maryland  and  Virginia 
had  been  emancipated.  The  example  of  the  Virginia 
Friends,  Warner  Mifflin  and  his  wife,  who  by  1775 
had  manumitted  all  their  human  chattels,  was  a 
bright  one  in  the  annals  of  this  sect  which  stands 
first  in  anti-slavery  and  emancipation  efforts. 
Mifflin  unceasingly  talked,  wrote  and  memorialized 
against  slavery  ;  he  must  have  been  in  his  day  as 
great  a  nuisance  to  the  morally  inert  as  Garrison 
later  proved  himself.  It  cannot  be  said  of  the 
Quakers  that  self-interest  would  fairly  explain  their 
willingness  to  let  go  their  hold  on  an  uneconomical 
system,  as  slavery  was  proving  itself  to  be  even  in 
colonial  days,  for  their  natural  prudence  and 
sagacity  might  easily  have  made  the  system  profit 
able.  Had  appeals  like  Garrison's  been  addressed 
to  such  rational,  peace-loving  slaveholders  as  these, 
he  might  have  accomplished  his  purpose  in  the  way 
lie  insisted  upon,  without  unwittingly  provoking  u 
vast  civil  strife.  The  efforts  of  other  religious 
bodies  seem  slight  in  comparison,  although  sporadic 
attempts,  especially  among  the  Baptists  and  Method 
ists,  were  honestly  made. 

Thus  far,  to  go  back  a  little,  all  that  pointed 
toward  any  solution  of  the  grave  problem  resulted, 
as  we  have  seen,  mostly  from  religious  motives  and 
was  said  or  done  by  occasional  individuals  more 
enlightened  than  the  times  in  which  they  lived  ; 
practically  nothing  had  been  accomplished  by 
united  or  organized  bodies.  The  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  however,  saw  the  rise  of  another  impulse 
which  affected  not  only  individuals  but  large  bodies 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION          29 

of  men,  and  surged  and  eddied  around  the  strong 
bulwarks  of  ecclesiasticisin  without  especially  mod 
ifying  it.  The  dogma  of  the  natural  rights  of  man 
and  its  corollary,  the  doctrine  of  equality,  made  many 
changes  ;  they  affected  if  they  did  not  produce  the 
American  Revolution  and  without  them  there  had 
been  no  French  uprising  or  Eeign  of  Terror.  They 
were  born,  as  such  great  movements  must  be  born, 
of  antecedent  wrongs  and  injustices.  It  was  im 
possible  that  so  general  a  sentiment  should  not 
change  men's  feelings  toward  human  slavery. 
Some  of  those  who  began  to  talk  about  the  beauties 
of  liberty  discovered  that  it  might  also  be  beautiful 
for  a  black  slave.  "Can  any  logical  inference," 
asks  James  Otis,  i  i  be  drawn  from  a  flat  nose,  a  long 
or  a  short  face?"  John  Adams,  Samuel  Webster, 
and  James  Swan  of  Massachusetts,  and  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Hopkins  of  Rhode  Island,  were  outspoken 
in  the  matter,  while  Dr.  Benjamin  Bush  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  that  excellent  patriot,  Henry  Laureus  of 
South  Carolina,  were  no  less  eager  to  see  ended  the 
strange  inconsistency  of  a  country  struggling  for 
freedom  and  independence,  yet  maintaining  under 
custom  and  law  a  portion  of  its  inhabitants  en 
slaved. 

Jefferson,  who  in  his  younger  days  trembled  for 
his  country  in  its  support  of  slavery  when  he  re 
flected  that  God  is  just,  suffered  in  his  later  years 
from  a  drying  up  of  the  juices  of  moral  enthusiasm  ; 
but,  as  the  enthusiast  who  penned  the  great  mani 
festo  of  freedom,  he  was  consistent  in  his  abhorrence, 
theoretical  as  it  may  have  been,  of  the  tyranny  of 


30  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

property  in  man.  On  the  other  hand,  the  tolerant 
and  freethinkiug  Franklin,  unlike  his  friend  White- 
field,  gained  more  light  as  he  grew  older.  Never  an 
idealist,  he  was  immensely  humane  in  practice. 
When  young,  though  intimate  with  Sandiford  and 
Lay,  he  advertised  negro-sales  in  his  Pennsylvania 
Gazette  ;  later  he  saw  and  wrote  upon  the  economic 
ineffectiveness  of  slavery ;  and  before  he  died  he 
rose  to  a  higher  philanthropic  plane  on  the  subject. 
He  was  incapable,  however,  of  the  great  enthusiasm 
of  a  Garrison,  because  he  was  more  limited  in  his 
moral  vision  j  yet  he  undoubtedly  saw  farther  in 
some  directions  than  was  possible  for  the  later 
agitator.  Franklin  and  Dr.  Benjamin  Bush  were 
leaders  of  the  sentiment  against  slavery  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  the  former  was  made  the  first  president 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Abolition  Society  when  it  was 
reorganized  under  a  very  long  and  comprehensive 
title.  John  Dickinson,  no  lover  of  Benjamin 
Franklin,  was  as  idealistically  uncompromising  in 
his  hatred  both  of  slavery  and  the  inconsistency  of 
maintaining  it,  as  any  Garrisonian. 

To  think  of  Benjamin  Franklin  in  connection 
with  anti- slavery  is  to  recall  his  friend  Ezra  Stiles, 
President  of  Yale  College,  who  was  president  of  the 
Connecticut  Abolition  Society,  and  who,  in  company 
with  Dr.  Hopkins,  also  had  a  leaning  toward  African 
colonization  before  colonization  began  to  be  re 
garded  with  suspicion.  In  New  Haven  the  second 
Jonathan  Edwards  was  strongly  against  the  evil,  and 
in  1791  preached  a  sermon  on  the  injustice  and  im 
policy  of  the  slave-trade  and  slavery,  in  which  he 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION         31 

urged  individual  manumission.  The  first  and 
greater  Edwards,  however,  like  the  renowned 
George  Whitefield,  did  believe  in  negro  slavery.1 

Four  Southerners  of  this  period  deserve  especial 
mention  :  George  Wythe  and  St.  George  Tucker,  the 
former  of  whom  had  earlier  inclined  toward 
abolition  and  afterward  freed  his  slaves,  while  the 
latter  favored  gradual  emancipation ;  the  Eev. 
David  Eice  of  Kentucky,  and  the  Eev.  James 
Gilliland  of  South  Carolina,  both  firm  opponents  of 
slavery,  the  evils  of  which  they  had  an  opportunity 
of  observing  at  close  range.  Another  clergyman, 
Jedediah  Morse  of  Connecticut,  the  geographer, 
used  his  widely  studied  books  to  inculcate,  as  chance 
offered,  his  views  on  the  subject.  William  Eawle 
and  Miers  Fisher  in  Pennsylvania,  Elias  Boudinot 
and  Joseph  Bloomfield  in  New  Jersey,  John  Jay 
and  Gouverueur  Morris  in  New  York,  Judge 
Zephauiah  Swift,  Noah  Webster,  and  Theodore 
Dwight  in  Connecticut,  all  are  to  be  placed  in  the 
post-revolutionary  ranks  of  anti-slavery,  though 
the  degree  of  their  several  enthusiasms  differed. 

While  some  were  seeking  to  show  that  the  primi 
tive  African  was  a  simple  and  delightful  creature, 
full  of  elemental  excellencies  of  the  Inkle  and 
Yarico  sort,  as  told  by  Steele  in  the  Spectator,  others 
seem  to  have  had  some  dim  foreshadowing  of  the 
biological  argument  of  comparative  racial  inferior 
ity.  Benezet  served  well  his  cause  by  showing  that 
the  black  man  under  more  favoring  conditions  was 
capable  of  advance. 

1  Rhodes,  Vol.  I,  p.  5. 


32  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKEISON 

To  a  considerable  and  important  extent,  not  only 
men  but  measures  before,  during  and  after  the 
Eevolution  were  against  the  perpetuation  of  this 
vexatious  contradiction  to  the  animating  principles 
of  those  days ;  we  are,  however,  concerned  more 
with  opinions  than  with  political  or  legislative 
acts,  and  must  be  content  with  remembering  that 
the  reaction  against  slavery  in  the  colonies  and  the 
new  nation  did  not  end  in  mere  edifying  phraseology 
and  philanthropic  sentiment.  Many  have  been  the 
attempts  to  prove  that  there  was  an  earnest  move 
ment  in  the  South,  and  particularly  in  Virginia,  to 
mitigate  the  most  trying  features  of  the  peculiar 
institution,  and  even  to  work  toward  some  plan  of 
gradual — very  gradual — emancipation.  Consider 
able  testimony  has  been  advanced  to  support  such  a 
theory,  but  there  is  also  abundant  evidence  that 
even  before  the  development  of  the  anti- slavery 
sentiment  reached  any  acute  stage,  resentment  and 
certainly  anxiety  were  shown  at  interference  on  the 
part  of  outsiders.  It  was  felt  in  the  early  days  of 
the  agitation  as  it  was  felt  later,  and  not  without 
reason,  that  whether  slavery  was  a  burden  or  not— 
and  there  is  frequent  admission  that  it  was  a  burden 
—it  must  be  borne  or  relieved  by  that  part  of  the 
country  which  had  decided,  all  things  considered, 
to  continue  the  responsibility  of  assuming  and 
maintaining  it. 

In  1785,  the  Eev.  Dr.  Thomas  Coke,  a  graduate 
of  Oxford  University,  and  ordained  superintendent 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  by  John  Wesley, 
one  of  the  most  fervid  haters  of  slavery,  was  in 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION         33 

Virginia  with  Superintendent  (later  Bishop)  Asbury, 
proclaiming  the  opposition  of  his  church  to  the  evil 
and  urging  petitions  for  its  actual  abolition.  In 
one  place  where  he  was  preaching  in  a  barn,  his 
efforts  * 4  provoked  many  of  the  uuawakened  to  re 
tire  out  of  the  barn  and  conspire  to  flog  me  as  soon 
as  I  came  out.  A  high -headed  lady  also  went  out 
and  told  the  rioters  that  she  would  give  fifty 
pounds,  if  they  would  give  that  little  Doctor  one 
hundred  lashes."  The  ki  little  Doctor"  suffered  no 
harm,  but  feeling  ran  strong  against  him  until  he 
learned  that,  in  raising  this  subject,  it  was  prudent 
first  to  address  "the  negroes  in  a  very  pathetic 
manner  on  the  duty  of  servants  to  masters."  Later 
in  the  year,  a  petition  for  a  general  emancipation, 
which  Washington,  after  expressing  an  agreement 
with  the  sentiment  of  Coke  and  Asbury,  declined 
to  sign,  was  unanimously  rejected,  but  not,  accord 
ing  to  Madison,  without  "an  avowed  patronage  of 
its  principles  by  sundry  respectable  members." i 
This  incident  is  cited  mainly  to  show  that  the  re 
sentment  of  earlier  and  later  days,  even  in  Virginia, 
against  interference  from  without  may  have  been 
the  same  in  kind.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  sym 
pathy  of  the  "  sundry  respectable  members  "  excited 
any  antipathy.  It  does  not  appear,  moreover,  that 
in  the  Southern  states  there  was  pronounced  objec 
tion  to  the  manumission  of  certain  slaves  who  had 
enlisted  and  served  in  the  Bevolutionary  War. 
The  sensitiveness  of  the  South  before  Garrison's 

1  Colonial  Society  of  Massachusetts.  Tramactions,  1899,  1900, 
pp.  370-380. 


34  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

day  must  uot  be  lost  sight  of.1  That  it  was  not  raw 
was  because  relatively  little  happened  to  make  it 
so.  The  possibility  of  irritation  was  ever  present. 
As  early  as  1825  W.  B.  Seabrook  of  Charles 
ton,  S.  C.,  took  alarm  regarding  the  anti-slavery 
sentiments  expressed  in  the  North,  during  the  ante- 
Garrison  period,  at  a  time  when,  according  to 
Oliver  Johnson,  one  of  Garrison's  biographers,  and 
for  a  time  editor  of  the  Liberator,  "  the  anti-slavery 
sentiment  of  the  country  had  become  too  feeble  to 
utter  even  a  whisper,"  and  when  "the  blackness 
of  the  darkness  of  ignorance  and  indifference 
.  .  .  then  brooded  over  what  we  call  the  moral 
and  religious  element  of  the  American  people." 
Mr.  Seabrook  did  not  discover  such  stagnation  in 
the  decade  before  the  young  Newburyport  printer 
found  himself  on  the  road  to  Damascus,  for  labor 
ing  under  strong  feeling,  he  writes  "  against  the 
constitutional  privileges  of  the  slaveholders,  to 
use  the  horrible  and  savage  language  of  the  Edin 
burgh  Review,  it  would  seem  as  if  they  [the  news 
papers  and  books  of  the  North]  had  i  declared  inter 
minable  war — war  for  themselves  and  for  their 
children  and  for  their  grandchildren — war  without 
peace — war  without  truce.'  "  The  foresight  of  this 
impassioned  Southern  pamphleteer  seems  to  have 
been  surer  than  the  historical  hindsight  of  the  zealous 
friends  of  the  great  Abolitionist,  anxious  to  prove  too 
much,  lest  they  defend  their  idol  not  loyally  enough. 
Now  and  then  was  uttered  some  opinion,  well 

1  The  Neglected  Period  of  Anti-Slavery  in  America,  Alice  Dana 
Adams,  p.  110. 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION         36 

calculated  to  rouse  the  always  lurking  fear  that 
some  day  the  freer  states  would  no  longer  remain 
passive  in  this  matter.  When  George  Thatcher  of 
Massachusetts  said,  in  1798,  in  the  debate  over  the 
prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Mississippi  Territory 
that  * '  a  property  in  slaves  is  founded  in  wrong, 
and  never  can  be  right,"  and  that  "  he  never  could 
be  brought  to  believe  that  an  individual  can  have 
a  right  in  anything  which  goes  to  the  destruction 
of  our  government ;  viz.,  that  he  can  have  right  in 
a  wrong" — he  struck  at  the  root  of  the  matter  as 
deeply  as  Garrison  himself.  He  did  not,  however, 
advocate  manumission  of  these  slaves,  or  cry  aloud 
for  immediate  abolition  without  indemnity.  That 
proposal,  in  all  its  boldness  and  simplicity,  really 
seems  at  this  time  not  to  have  moved  the  general 
heart  of  man.  On  the  contrary,  men  were  open  to 
the  seductive  argument  from  the  South,  that  the 
condition  of  the  slaves  would  be  ameliorated  and 
gradual  emancipation  become  possible  if  the  area 
of  their  bondage  were  enlarged — on  the  principle, 
perhaps,  that  treacle  and  poison  would  do  less  harm 
spread  thin  on  a  large  slice  of  bread  than  thick  on 
a  small  one.  However  unpersuaded  by  such  an 
argument  one  might  be  to-day,  at  that  time  it  had 
its  effect.  The  Mississippi  Territory  was  not  made 
free  ;  freedom  and  slavery  were  divided  by  the 
Ohio ;  and  soon  came  the  Missouri  Compromise 
which  still  further  marked  the  impressive  attempts 
of  slavery  to  establish  itself  politically  so  that  it 
could  not  eventually  be  dislodged  by  popular  op 
position. 


36  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISON 

With  the  wisdom  that  shrewdly  comes  in  this 
case,  long  after  the  event,  it  is  clear  that  the  spirit 
of  mutual  adjustment  must  have  shown  the  early 
sympathizers  with  anti-slavery  that  the  only  hope 
of  securing  the  most  desirable  thing — the  doing 
away  with  slavery — lay  in  effecting  something  else 
almost  as  important — the  prohibition  of  the  slave- 
trade.  The  more  Southern  portion  of  the  country 
could  still  be  approached  in  this  matter,  without 
exciting  great  antagonism. 

The  abolition  of  the  slave-trade  and  the  War 
of  1812,  almost  immediately  following,  weakened  the 
general  anti-slavery  sentiment.  There  being  as 
yet  little  of  a  practical  nature  and  certainly  less  of 
anything  subversive  or  revolutionary  in  the  various 
suggestions  for  alleviating  conditions  in  the  house 
of  bondage,  it  was  natural  and  inevitable  that  so 
practical  a  thing  as  war  should  prove  a  distraction. 
It  undoubtedly  did  distract  attention  from  the  moral 
question  of  slavery  as  well  as  from  the  working  of 
the  prohibition  of  the  slave-trade  in  1807.  On  the 
whole,  it  is  remarkable  that  only  about  fifteen  years 
after  the  close  of  the  war  there  was  sufficient  read 
justment  in  the  public  mind  once  more  to  entertain 
so  grave  a  problem.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  general 
awakening  that  began  in  the  early  thirties  and  for 
the  pronouncement  of  the  South  against  the  work 
ings  of  the  Tariff  of  Abominations  ending  with  a 
threat  of  secession,  it  is  conceivable  that  even  the 
energy  of  a  Garrison — for  Lundy  had  failed  to  make 
a  profound  or  a  general  impression — would  not 
have  aroused  large  attention.  After  the  Civil  War 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION         37 

the  nation  was  not  ripe  to  entertain  any  serious 
question  until  almost  twenty  years  had  elapsed.  Up 
to  the  first  nomination  of  Cleveland  even  so  prac 
tical  a  matter  as  the  reform  of  the  civil  service  was 
lightly  or  scomngly  regarded  except  by  a  relatively 
few,  and  they  were  often  objects  of  derision.  It  is 
not  unreasonable  that  a  people,  always  cautious 
about  grasping  a  fresh  conception  of  duty  or  inter 
est,  should  lie  fallow  as  regards  moral  perplexities 
after  so  devastating  an  event  as  war. 

The  compromises  of  the  Constitution  by  no  means 
extinguished  the  spirit  of  liberty  best  formulated  in 
the  Great  Declaration,  and  they  only  dulled  for  a 
time  the  other  and  stronger  spirit  of  justice  and 
sense  of  duty  to  all  mankind.  After  the  Revolu 
tion,  and  until  the  formal  abolition  of  the  slave- 
trade  in  1807,  there  was  what  has  been  called  an 
era  of  gradual  abolition.  Mainly  by  emancipative 
acts  the  various  Northern  states  rid  themselves  of 
the  burden  and  reproach  of  slaveholding,  though 
in  some  states  the  process  of  liberation  dragged 
on  so  gradually  that  the  nineteenth  century  was 
well  advanced  before  it  could  be  said  there  were  no 
slaves  north  of  the  dividing  line.  In  Pennsylvania, 
for  instance,  notwithstanding  the  preponderating 
influence  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  ever  one  of  the 
strongholds  of  anti- slavery  sentiment,  the  United 
States  census  as  late  as  1840  reports  that  there  were 
still  forty  slaves. 

Yet  the  prohibition  of  the  slave-trade  did  solidify 
what  there  was  of  anti-slavery  sentiment,  now  pos 
sessing  a  sort  of  recognition  by  statute.  If  the  slave- 


38  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

trade  were  brought  to  ail  end  by  legislation,  slavery 
itself  in  time  might  receive  similar  consideration. 
Meanwhile,  patience  and  a  constant  declaration  that 
slavery  was  in  itself  an  evil  seem  to  have  been  the 
watchword ;  an  actual  program  or  a  definite  plan 
to  oppose  the  evil  itself  did  not  really  exist  until 
Garrison  appeared. 

The  war  well  over,  dormant  sensibilities  again 
revived.  Travelers  and  immigrants,  it  has  been 
pointed  out  by  Miss  Locke  in  her  most  informing 
monograph,  already  cited,  now  began  to  make  ob 
servations  of  the  institution  as  they  actually  saw 
it  in  passing,  and  their  observations  were  unfavor 
able.  Besides  the  continuing  efforts,  mild  as  they 
were,  of  the  various  organizations,  through  conven 
tions  and  reports,  the  grave  matter  of  the  possible 
invasion  of  free  territory  by  slavery  was  of  increas 
ing  importance.  Indiana  was  admitted  as  a  state 
in  1816,  and  Illinois  in  1818,  with  constitutional 
prohibitions  of  slavery.  As  counterweight  on  the 
side  of  slavery,  Mississippi  came  into  the  Union  in 
1817  and  Alabama  in  1819.  Then  followed  the  ad 
mission  in  1820  of  Missouri,  the  second  state  (Lou 
isiana  being  the  first  in  1812)  to  be  formed  out  of 
the  Louisiana  Purchase.  The  equipoise  of  power  re 
quired  that  if  Maine  were  to  be  separated  from 
Massachusetts  to  form  another  free  state,  Missouri 
must  come  into  the  Union  committed  to  slavery. 
There  having  been  no  marked  controversy  over  Lou 
isiana,  it  was  Missouri  that  occasioned  the  discussion 
as  to  what  was  to  be  done  about  freedom  and  sla 
very  west  of  the  Mississippi,  for  the  line  of  freedom 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION         39 

ran  to  the  division  north  of  the  Ohio  and  east  of  the 
Mississippi.  The  "Missouri  Compromise  Line" 
was  the  parallel  of  latitude  36°  30' ;  Missouri  came 
in  as  a  slave  state  and  slavery  was  shut  out  of  all 
territory  north  of  the  line  running  west  to  what  were 
then  the  Spanish  Possessions. 

Acting  as  a  setback  to  the  growing  activities 
stimulated  by  the  political  exigencies  of  the  day, 
the  American  Colonization  Society  was  started  in 
1816,  and  enlisted  the  sympathies  of  a  large  number 
of  the  respectable  and  socially  important  class,  both 
North  and  South.  Occasional  petitions  to  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  were  made  dur 
ing  the  last  decade  preceding  Garrison.  As  early 
as  1805  a  resolution  was  presented  and  rejected  in 
Congress,  pointing  toward  ultimate  emancipation 
in  the  District ;  a  year  earlier,  John  Parrish  held 
that  the  government  had  authority  in  the  District 
"  to  prevent  some  of  those  evils  this  degraded  part 
of  our  fellow  men  are  groaning  under. ' ' T  These  were 
precedents  of  the  strenuous  efforts  of  the  new  abo 
litionism  to  eradicate  the  evil  in  the  one  place 
wherein  the  government  of  the  United  States  had 
power  to  act  if  it  so  chose,  without  impairing  the 
constitutional  rights  and  privileges  of  any  state. 

Of  the  anti-slavery  or  abolition  societies,  little 
more  needs  to  be  said.  There  is  not  sufficient  reason 
to  doubt  their  sincerity  in  pursuing  their  professed 
object ;  and  it  may  safely  be  assumed  that  they 
wished  to  mitigate  and  finally  to  do  away  with  the 
horrors  of  slavery  and  even  slavery  itself.  Their 
1  Locke,  p.  163. 


40  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

general  purposes  were  practically  the  same,  but  it  is 
probable  that  with  many  their  specific  activity  was 
devoted  to  alleviating  the  lot  of  the  slave,  and  to 
caring  for  free  blacks,  educationally  and  in  other 
ways.  One  hundred  and  eighteen  of  these  societies 
have  been  enumerated  as  in  existence  between  1808 
and  1831.  The  most  important  as  well  as  the  first  of 
them  was  the  Pennsylvania  Society  for  Promoting 
the  Abolition  of  Slavery.  Organized  in  1775  and 
composed  largely  of  Quakers,  it  declined  in  activity 
during  the  Revolution,  and  was  rehabilitated  in  1787, 
with  Franklin  as  the  first  president.  Other  societies 
mainly  followed  its  plan  of  organization  and  work. 
It  was  natural  that  the  American  Convention  for 
Promoting  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  should  meet, 
with  but  few  gaps,  each  year  from  1794  to  1828,  in 
Philadelphia,  where  what  one  may  call  the  parent 
society  of  Garrisonian  abolition  afterward  had  its 
birth.  Ten  years  later  the  American  Convention 
was  extinct. 

It  is  important  to  recognize  that  these  earlier  or 
ganizations  proposed  nothing  insurrectionary,  and 
that  their  address  was  made  to  the  sensibilities  of 
all  Americans  in  behalf  of  what  was  believed  to  be  a 
great  misfortune  rather  than  a  political  crime.  Yet 
it  is  true,  from  the  unbiased  standpoint  of  imper 
sonal  history,  that  they  ploughed  and  harrowed 
ground  which  otherwise  might  have  been  infertile 
indeed,  when  Garrison  appeared,  like  some  modern 
Cudnius,  to  sow  seed  that  raised  a  crop  of  a  million 
armed  men. 

It  would  be  easily  possible  to  enlarge  on  these 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION         41 

aud  other  efforts  to  rouse  Americans  to  an  interest 
in  this  most  vital  of  problems,  but  there  is  no  call 
to  do  so  here.  It  is  enough  to  have  indicated,  how 
ever  rapidly,  that  "the  history  of  anti-slavery  has 
no  gaps."  l 

In  the  South  not  only  did  individuals  appear  to 
be  in  earnest,  but  collectively  there  was  some  move 
ment  by  way  of  organization,  if  not  of  specific  or 
definite  action.  In  six  states,  half  of  them  in  the 
later  seceding  South,  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia, 
North  Carolina,  Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  over  one 
hundred  abolition  societies  had  an  existence,  though 
there  is  ground  for  believing  that  many  and  perhaps 
most  of  them  were  inactive. 

A  review  of  the  earlier  history  of  the  anti-slavery 
movement  is  not  quite  accurate  so  long  as  it  recog 
nizes  only  two  divisions  of  the  country,  the  North 
and  the  South,  without  separate  reference  to  the 
West.  The  geographical  situation  of  Ohio,  and  still 
more  of  Indiana  and  Illinois,  the  first  three  states 
cut  out  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  connected  them 
in  the  years  before  the  westward  extension  of  the 
railroads  more  closely  with  the  South  than  with  the 
North,  and  immigration  into  them,  especially  in  their 
earlier  years,  was  in  great  measure  from  the  South. 
The  Southerners  brought  with  them  widely  diver 
gent  views  of  slavery  ;  but  it  is  worthy  of  remark 
that  while  Southern  efforts  to  open  the  Northwest  to 
slavery  were  vigorous,  no  small  proportion  of  the 
settlers  from  the  South  came  expressly  to  be  rid  of 
the  evil,  some  even  bringing  their  slaves  to  emanci- 
1  Locke,  p.  8  ;  Adams,  p.  252. 


42  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARKISCXN 

pate  them  iii  a  land  of  freedom.  The  Kentucky 
settlers  repulsed  at  Chillicothe  by  Indians  ;  the 
Virginian,  Governor  Coles,  who  saved  the  soil  of 
Illinois  to  freedom  ;  and  the  Carolina  Quakers  in 
Indiana  are  merely  conspicuous  examples  of  a 
stream  of  Southern  immigrants  carrying  to  the 
Northwest  a  conscientious  horror  of  slavery.  As  for 
the  Northerners,  no  one  can  read  of  the  early  aboli 
tion  societies  in  Ohio,1  or  follow  the  discussions  in 
old  Indiana 2  papers,  or  become  acquainted  with  the 
activity  of  the  itinerant  John  W.  Peck  in  stirring 
up  the  Illinois 3  preachers,  without  being  well  as 
sured  that  many  of  those  who  came  into  the  North 
west  from  Northern  states  reprobated  slavery  as  a 
moral  evil.  It  is  true  that  but  a  small  proportion 
of  the  population,  whether  of  Northern  or  Southern 
origin,  were  moved  by  feelings  deeper  than  those  of 
prejudice  and  self-interest,  yet  something  more  vital 
than  the  instinct  of  political  self-preservation  was 
already  at  work  in  these  communities.  The  sacri 
fices  of  some  of  the  an ti -slavery  men  of  the  Old 
Northwest  and  the  energy  of  others  are  sufficient  to 
prove  that  neither  the  whole  North  nor  even  the 
whole  South  had  been  "  slumbering  in  the  lap  of 
moral  death." 

We  have  come,  by  forced  marches,  close  upon  the 
time  when  a  new  energy  and  a  fresh  inspiration  were 
to  enter  a  field  which  had  been  already  occupied 


1  Adams,  pp.  148-149. 

2  Jndiana,  a  Redemption   From  Slavery,   J.  P.  Dunn,  Jr.,  pp. 
417-436. 

8  Negro  Servitude  in  Illinois,  N.  D.  Harris,  p.  43. 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION         43 

worthily  for  many  years.  The  Northwest  Ordinance, 
the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  and  the  Free-Soil 
ideas  already  generated  in  Illinois  and  Indiana, 
were  great  achievements.  But  something  more 
definite  still  was  needed  toward  the  fulfilment  of  a 
hope  avowed  by  many  earnest  souls  and  many 
widely  distributed  organizations — and  this  some 
thing  was  a  concrete  national  plan  to  do  away  with 
the  incubus  of  human  bondage.  The  story  of  the 
pre  Garrisonian  efforts  at  best  is  uninspiring,  with 
occasionally  some  luminous  incident.  It  is  almost 
wholly  wanting  in  that  spontaneity  and  fervor  which 
sometimes  change  mere  annals  into  dramatic  move 
ment.  What  had  long  been  the  perfunctory  dis 
charge  of  moral  obligations,  as  men  saw  their  duty 
in  the  matter,  was  now  to  become  a  strenuous,  unre 
mitting  challenge  to  fight,  not  with  the  weapons  of 
war  but  of  conscience ;  the  battle  was  to  be  no 
less  grim,  because  it  was  for  many  years  to  be 
bloodless. 

When  the  young  printer  sent  forth  his  arrogant 
demand  for  immediate  abolition  and  for  no  union 
with  slaveholders,  he  appealed  to  the  emotions  and 
the  conscience  of  a  country  in  which,  by  entirely 
pacificatory  measures,  slaveholding  had  disappeared 
in  one  and  the  stronger  half,  and  from  which  by 
legislative  enactment  the  slave-trade  had  been  for 
ever  abolished.  The  line  dividing  freedom  and 
slavery  had  been  drawn — by  compromise  to  be 
sure,  but  how  else  could  it  have  been  drawn? 
Books,  pamphlets,  the  preacher  and  the  orator  at 
their  desks,  even  the  occasional  politician  on  his 


44  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEEISON 

stump,  memorials  and  petitions,  newspapers,  and 
more  than  all  this,  the  slow-growing  ferment  of  dis 
satisfaction  in  a  democracy  beginning  to  come  to 
self -consciousness  after  being  born  in  one  war,  and 
cutting  its  teeth  in  a  second — these  various  factors 
were  in  a  fashion  ready  to  hand  when  Garrison  dis 
covered,  after  a  few  years  of  seeming  indifference  to 
the  whole  matter,  that  the  bondage  of  one  human 
being  by  another  was  an  intolerable  evil.  His 
achievements  were  no  less  great,  his  genius  for  mov 
ing  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men  was  no  less 
wonderful,  because,  happily,  he  fitted  well  into  an 
environment  which  was  not  at  all  feeble  because  it 
happened  to  need  so  strong  a  character  at  the  precise 
time  when  he  rather  suddenly  appeared.  When 
there  is  discussion  as  to  preponderant  influences  in 
a  cause,  there  is  no  final  agreement  possible,  but 
in  reflecting  upon  the  activities  of  the  ante- Garrison 
period,  it  is  comprehensible  why  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  in  answer  to  the  question,  u  Who  abolished 
slavery?"  should  have  answered,  "  Eev.  John  Kan- 
kin  and  his  seven  sons."  This  was  the  Eaukin,  the 
first  edition  of  whose  Letters  on  American  Slavery 
were  published  at  Eipley,  O.,  in  1826,  when  the 
author  was  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  church. 
Garrison,  finding  that  these  letters  had  "Scriptural 
pungency,"  republished  them  in  the  Liberator. 
Beecher' s  saying  rather  indirectly  recalls  the  irony 
of  Wendell  Phillips's  remark  in  Mrs.  Chapman's 
abolition  annual,  the  well-printed  and  well-edited 
Liberty  Bell :  "It  may  yet  come  to  pass  thai  it.  will 
be  given  out  as  a  subject  for  themes  at  Harvard, 


THE  ANTECEDENT  CONDITION         46 

*  Which  did  the  most,  Garrison  or  Calhoun,  for  the 
downfall  of  American  slavery  f J  " 

After  making  the  fullest  recognition,  therefore, 
of  all  forerunners,  it  is  due  to  Garrison's  memory 
to  recall  the  assertion  of  one  who  knew  him  and 
who  observed  intelligently.  It  is  safe  to  agree 
with  Mr.  Webb's  statement  of  threescore  years 
ago :  i  i  People  might  talk  till  doomsday  of  opposing 
slavery,  or  of  getting  rid  of  it  by  some  process  of 
infinitesimal  slowness ;  they  might  propose  plans 
for  preparing  the  slave  for  freedom,  and  of  leaving 
off  robbery  and  licentiousness  by  degrees.  Nobody 
was  disturbed  by  such  propositions.  But  the  call 
to  cease  at  once  from  these  gigantic  crimes  shook 
the  laud  like  au  earthquake,  and  forced  the  preacher 
of  this  Gospel  of  Liberty  into  a  position  of  promi 
nence  which  he  has  maintained  to  the  present  hour." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  TENTATIVE  YEARS 

BORN  on  December  10,  1805,  William  Lloyd  Garri 
son  had  New  England,  Irish,  and,  probably  though 
not  certainly,  Provincial  blood  in  his  veins.  From 
the  New  England  point  of  view,  his  New  Brunswick 
ichor  was  the  least  desirable  of  the  three  strains, 
for  it  has  never  been  felt  by  the  inhabitants  of  that 
part  of  our  country  that  the  Maritime  Provinces 
have  contributed  their  just  proportion  to  the  good 
results  ensuing  to  the  native  American  stock  from 
vigorous  immigration.  However  unreasonable  this 
Yankee  prejudice  against  the  "Blue  Noses,"  such 
prejudice  doubtless  exists ;  but  it  is  within  the 
truth  to  say  that  Garrison  did  not  have  the  traits 
thought  to  be  typical  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  land 
of  his  immediate  paternal  ancestry.  His  grand 
father  on  his  father's  side,  Joseph  Garrison,  may 
have  been  an  American  Loyalist,  or  may  have  been 
and  probably  was  an  Englishman  found  by  emi 
grants  from  Essex  County,  Massachusetts,  who 
settled  in  the  Maugerville  Grant,  New  Brunswick, 
and  who  included  his  name  among  the  grantees. 
He  married  in  1764  Mary,  the  third  daughter  of 
Daniel  Palmer  of  Eowley,  another  of  the  grantees. 
The  fifth  of  their  nine  children,  born  in  1773,  was 
Abijah,  father  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison. 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEARS  47 

Though  severed  from  the  American  Colonies,  and 
closer  to  the  effective  control  of  the  British  govern 
ment,  the  Essex  County  emigrants  were  at  this  time 
not  deaf  to  the  growing  clamors  for  resistance  in 
some  form  to  the  mother  country.  One  proof  of  the 
direct  English  origin  of  Joseph  Garrison  is  that  he 
was  not  affected  by  the  rebellious  sentiments  of  his 
associates,  and  did  not  sign,  as  did  his  father-in- 
law,  a  spirited  and  audacious  address  entitled 
"  Action  of  the  People  on  the  St.  John  River,"  an 
omission  for  which  he  found  himself  sent  to  Coventry 
for  a  time  by  his  fellow  settlers.  Compelled  by  the 
troops  of  a  visiting  British  vessel  to  take  the  oath 
of  allegiance,  these  settlers,  in  spite  of  their  bold 
declaration,  quieted  down  from  necessity.  Joseph 
Garrison  died  in  1783,  leaving  no  wealth,  but 
transmitting  to  his  posterity  an  aptitude  for  music 
and  a  tendency  to  lameness  in  the  male  line. 
Abijah  Garrison  was  a  sailor  and  rose  to  the  posi 
tion  of  captain.  His  son,  writing  from  hearsay, 
affirms  that  he  had  a  sound  knowledge  of  naviga 
tion,  was  u  genial  and  social  in  his  manners,  kind 
and  affectionate  in  his  disposition."  He  married 
Frances  Maria  (called  Fanny),  daughter  of  Andrew 
Lloyd,  of  Kinsale,  Muuster,  Ireland.  Her  mother 
was  also  born  in  Ireland,  of  an  English  father  and 
an  Irish  mother.  Fanny  was  born  in  Deer  Island, 
New  Brunswick,  in  1776,  and  here  Abijah  romantic 
ally  found  her,  hotly  wooed,  and  quickly  won  her. 
The  date  of  the  marriage  is  not  known,  but  it  was 
probably  just  before  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  at  Jernseg,  Abijah's  birthplace. 


48  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

Three  children  were  born  to  this  couple  before  they 
left  St.  John,  where  they  lived  during  the  first 
years  of  their  wedded  life.  They  then  went  to 
Granville,  Nova  Scotia,  and  later,  moved  perhaps 
by  sentiment,  took  voyage  for  the  home  of  Abijah's 
maternal  ancestry,  arriving  in  Newburyport  early 
in  1805. 

Late  that  year,  on  December  10th,  was  born  their 
fourth  child,  William  Lloyd,  by  good  fortune  as 
well  as  by  unmistakable  characteristics,  a  New  Eng- 
lander,  but  not  typically  a  Massachusetts  Puritan. 
He  was  too  nobly  lacking  in  prudence  for  that. 
The  house  in  which  he  was  born  still  exists,  though 
the  interior  is  much  changed.  On  one  side  of  it 
stands  the  parsonage  where  the  great  George  White- 
field  used  to  lodge  during  his  visits  and  where  he 
died  ;  on  the  other  side  is  the  church  where  White 
field  preached,  and  beneath  which  his  dust  now  lies. 
Nearly  opposite  was  the  writing-school  where  the 
young  Garrison  got  the  beginnings  of  a  far  from 
elaborate  education.  Of  the  noble  character  of  his 
mother,  the  son  gave  ample  testimony  by  word  and 
by  the  following  of  her  precepts.  She  had  an  un 
common  courage  which  was  in  his  case  certainly 
transmitted.  Poverty  dismayed  her  as  little  as  it 
did  her  illustrious  son.  And  she  had  withal  a  com 
placent,  buoyant  disposition  by  means  of  which  she 
managed  to  ride  over  the  waves  of  adversity  without 
shipping  too  many  seas.  This  amiable  trait  was 
also  passed  on  to  the  next  generation,  to  the  incal 
culable  benefit  of  the  inheritor.  Eeligious  tolerance, 
never  failing  except  in  the  presence  of  intolerance, 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEARS  49 

characterized  both  mother  and  son.  The  influence 
of  so  admirable  a  parent  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  in 
a  general  estimate  of  a  character  like  Garrison's. 
He  certainly  paid  full  tribute.  Besides  these  traits 
of  character  was  the  gift  of  a  fine  personal  appear 
ance — not  the  greatest  which  the  gods  bestow,  but 
helpful  and  a  cause  for  gratitude. 

If  birthplaces  were  of  our  own  choosing,  a  New 
Englander  on  the  threshold  of  life  a  hundred  years 
ago  might  have  hesitated  long  over  Portsmouth, 
Newburyport,  and  Salem.  All  were  beautiful  and 
important  seaport  towns,  and  each  had  a  flavor 
quite  its  own.  In  each  of  them  ancient  dignity  and 
distinction  are  still  well  maintained,  though  com 
mercial  changes,  steam  navigation,  and  a  connect 
ing  railroad  which  has  reduced  their  rivalries  to  a 
level  of  moderate  enterprise,  have  long  since 
robbed  them  of  preeminence.  Each  was  a  place 
where  a  growing  boy  might  justly  feel  that  his 
chance  in  life  would  depend  largely  on  character 
and  ability,  although  a  local  aristocracy,  whose 
sentiments  were  admirably  expressed  in  the  ample 
and  persuasive  architecture  of  those  days,  made 
itself  felt.  It  was  not,  however,  oppressive,  and 
those  who,  like  Garrison,  were  modestly  placed, 
enjoyed  the  sensibly  adjusted  democratic  conditions 
which  survived  the  Eevolution  for  nearly  fifty 
years. 

Before  young  William  Lloyd  was  three  years  old 
—about  the  middle  of  the  summer  of  1808— Abijah 
Garrison  left  his  wife  and  his  little  family,  just  dimin 
ished  by  the  death  of  a  daughter,  and  enriched  by 


50  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABRISON 

the  birth  of  another,  and  never  set  foot  again  in  New- 
buryport.  The  Garrisons,  in  the  monumental  bi 
ography  of  their  father,  have  told  this  humiliating 
story  of  the  desertion  of  his  home  by  their  grand 
father  with  their  habitual  passion  for  truthfulness, 
and  there  need  be  no  lingering  over  the  sorrowful 
plight  and  mortification  of  a  woman  in  her  early 
thirties  left  with  three  young  children.  However, 
it  is  necessary  to  the  structure  of  this  narrative  of 

N  Garrison's  life  to  know  that  intemperance,  at  least 
a  too  free  use  of  drink,  may  have  been  at  the  bottom 
of  Abijah  Garrison's  cowardly  sin.  His  wife  was 
vigorous  in  her  disapproval  of  her  husband's  way 
ward  appetite,  but  it  would  not  be  in  accord  with 
what  is  known  of  her  to  infer  that  she  nagged  him 
to  the  point  of  deserting  her.  No  modern  theory  of 
dual  personality  or  the  mania  errabunda  will  ex 
plain  his  flitting,  for  he  was  heard  of  as  li\7ing  and 
conscious  of  his  own  identity  as  late  as  1814,  but 
not  later.  His  indulgence  in  drink  was  the  evidence 
of  a  more  essential  weakness,  and  this  led  him  to 
the  final  step  which  one  hesitates  to  call  baseness, 
for  it  is  too  vague  and  unsatisfactory  a  word.  One 
son  followed  his  father's  perverse  and  self- indul 
gent  ways ;  the  other  grew  up  to  an  immaculate 
manhood,  as  far  as  moral  qualities  are  concerned, 
with  an  abhorrence  of  all  personal,  physical  vices, 
and  in  him,  as  must  be  in  fairness  admitted,  there  was 
but  little  of  the  paternal  inheritance.  Genius  does 
not  most  readily  find  a  nidus  in  a  sound  and  normal 
make-up,  but  seems  to  settle  with  avidity  into  those 

'  personalities  where  are  lurking  eccentric  and  dan- 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEARS  51 

gerous  elements.  Eemembering  this,  the  greater 
seems  Garrison's  debt  to  his  mother,  and  the  greater 
the  marvel  of  his  escape,  through  her  normality, 
from  his  father's  shortcomings. 

When  this  deadening  blow  to  her  pride  and  her 
hitherto  robust  health  fell  upon  Mrs.  Garrison,  liv 
ing  as  she  did  under  the  protecting  kindness  of 
Captain  Farnham  and  his  wife  in  the  plain  box 
house  on  School  Street,  there  was  fortunately  no  im 
mediate  danger  of  finding  herself  roofless.  She 
turned  to  that  for  which  her  womanly  and  maternal 
instincts  well  adapted  her — the  occupation  of  nurs 
ing.  In  New  England  at  that  time  the  calling  fol 
lowed  by  the  mother  of  Socrates  was  a  respected^ 
one.  A  few  years  later,  Mrs.  Garrison  went  to 
Lynn,  still  as  a  nurse,  but  leaving  her  younger  son 
in  care  of  the  Bartletts,  a  worthy  Baptist  family. 
By  this  time  he  had  completed  his  primary  train 
ing,  in  which  he  showed  himself  no  marvelous 
scholar,  except  in  handwriting  ;  and  had  attended 
the  grammar  school  for  about  three  months,  when 
Deacon  Bartlett's  necessities  obliged  him  to  use  the 
lad's  services  to  eke  out  a  subsistence  for  the  family. 
Thus  taught  by  contact  with  humble  poverty, 
young  Lloyd,  for  so  his  mother  called  him,  learned 
the  lessons  of  self-sacrifice  and  of  obligation  to 
others  ;  but  he  was  not  the  less  a  hearty  and  pleas 
ure-loving  boy,  fond  of  all  the  sports,  and  taking 
his  part  in  the  rough  and  tumble,  with  no  misgiv 
ings  as  yet  in  regard  to  1 1  non-resistance. "  It  was 
his  good  fortune  thus  early  to  have  mastery  in  sev 
eral  achievements,  among  them  long-distance  swim- 


52  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISON 

ming.  From  both  parents  came  to  him  a  love  for 
music,  which,  early  encouraged  and  cultivated,  was 
a  source  of  enjoyment  to  him  and  to  others  all  his 
life.  His  boyhood,  then,  in  spite  of  serious  priva 
tions,  was  sane,  natural,  and  wholesome.  At  the 
age  of  nine  this  child,  already  familiar  with  life  as 
a  duty  and  not  as  a  merry-go-round,  was  appren 
ticed  to  a  shoe  manufacturer  in  a  small  way  in 
Lynn,  where  he  had  gone  to  be  with  his  mother, 
now  beginning  to  need  more  assistance.  Presently 
the  mother  and  her  two  boys  joined  a  party  of  la 
borers  who  followed  another  Lynn  manufacturer  to 
Baltimore,  to  try  the  making  of  shoes  in  that  place. 
The  venture  was  unprofitable,  and  all  hands  re 
turned  to  Lynn  with  Mr.  Newhall,  the  projector  of 
the  enterprise,  with  the  exception  of  Mrs.  Garrison, 
who  again  took  up  her  calling  with  success.  Before 
long,  however,  her  son  James  ran  away  to  sea,  and 
the  steadier  boy  went  back  to  the  Bartletts  to  get  a 
little  more  schooling  and  to  earn  what  he  could  of 
a  living.  The  escapades  of  Garrison  are  few  indeed, 
yet  it  may  be  recalled  that  at  about  this  time,  ap 
prenticed  to  a  Haverhill  cabinet-maker,  Moses 
Short  by  name,  the  boy  became  homesick  for  New- 
buryport,  and  tried  to  get  there  by  lt hooking" 
rides  on  the  stage-coach.  He  was  overtaken  by  his 
master,  who  released  him  formally  when  he  under 
stood  his  apprentice's  natural  longings. 

At  last,  in  the  fall  of  1818.  began  the  definite  oc 
cupation  of  his  life,  when  he  was  apprenticed  as  a 
printer's  boy  to  Ephraiin  W.  Allen,  editor  of  a 
semi-weekly  paper,  the  Newburyport  Herald.  It 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEAES  53 

was  in  the  office  of  the  Herald  that  sixty  years 
later  he  went  to  the  case  and  handled  type  for  the 
last  time.  His  marvelous  persistence  began  to  as 
sert  itself  and  he  soon  became  an  expert  compositor. 
Away  from  him,  his  mother  pined  to  have  her  son 
with  her  in  Baltimore,  but  with  her  strong  good  sense 
would  not  call  him  to  her,  though  she  suffered  much 
from  physical  ailments.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
that  she  acknowledged  her  obligations,  during  ill 
ness,  to  Heuuy,  a  colored  woman  "that  is  so  kind 
no  one  can  tell  how  kind  she  is,  and  although  a 
slave  to  man,  yet  a  free  born  soul,  by  the  grace  of 
God.''  Thus  indirect  though  sacred  was  the  first 
recorded  contact  of  Garrison  with  the  race  to  which 
he  was  to  consecrate  his  life. 

Still  in  his  teens,  the  young  fellow,  having  mas 
tered  the  various  details  of  his  craft,  was  made  fore 
man  of  the  Herald  office.  He  was  indebted  for  his 
success  not  only  to  his  diligence  and  skill— often  do 
ing  his  thousand  "  ems"  an  hour  for  several  hours 
at  a  stretch,  but  to  his  associates.  Chief  among 
them  was  Tobias  H.  Miller,  later  a  Portsmouth  city 
missionary,  whose  even,  benignant  temper  and  en 
couraging  adages  and  "  sententire  "  made  a  helpful 
impression  on  his  fellow  craftsman. 

It  is  not  known  whether  Garrison  ever  read  the 
"  Autobiography  "  of  Benjamin  Franklin;  but  it 
would  have  been  natural  for  him  to  profit  by  such 
an  example.  In  any  event  there  are  interesting  re 
semblances  in  their  boyhoods.  Neither  found  his 
first  employment  much  to  his  liking,  but  both,  when 
entered  in  the  printer's  trade,  through  good  habits, 


54  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

perseverance,  and  unusual  skill  and  aptitude,  pro 
gressed  with  marvelous  rapidity.  Both  early  felt  the 
value  of  good  reading,  but  Garrison-  s  range  seems  not 
to  have  been  as  broad  as  Franklin's,  although,  com 
ing  just  a  hundred  years  later,  he  had  a  wider  choice. 
The  didactive  appealed  to  both.  What  Cotton 
Mather's  "  Essays  to  Do  Good  "  were  to  the  earlier, 
such  writings  as  Mrs.  Hemaus's  poetry  were  to  the 
later,  American.  And  curiously  each  tried  his 
'prentice  hand  in  anonymous  contributions  to  the 
newspaper  published  in  the  office  where  he  was  em 
ployed,  and  each  was  successful.  The  "  Do  Good'' 
letters  find  their  counterpart  in  the  wise  cogitations 
of  "  An  Old  Bachelor."  The  analogy  might  be 
carried  farther,  and  it  might  be  shown  how  both  these 
eminent  youths  were  inspired  by  a  passion  for  self- 
improvement,  which  developed  on  widely  differing 
paths  into  a  strong  desire  to  benefit  mankind.  Con 
sidering  that  one  was  the  most  eminently  practical 
of  all  Americans,  and  that  the  other  was  in  the  front 
rank  of  our  idealists,  the  recognition  of  such  resem 
blances  is  not  unprofitable. 

Long  before  he  was  twenty  Garrison  had  become 
interested  in  political  controversies,  mainly  through 
a  reading  of  Fisher  Ames's  defenses  of  Federalism  ; 
but  the  fascination  of  party  contest  still  kept  him, 
as  it  kept  others,  blind  to  the  moral  inconsistencies 
involved  in  our  national  existence.  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  was  then  as  insensible  to  the  question  of 
slavery  as  was  that  cold,  astute,  political  craftsman, 
Caleb  Gushing,  for  whose  editorials  in  the  Herald 
the  young  man  must  have  often  set  up  the  type,  and 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEAKS  55 

who  was  personally  interested  in  the  young  appren 
tice.  That  he  was  now  capable  of  moral  indignation, 
however,  aside  from  his  political  fervor,  is  seen  in 
his  hatred  of  the  Holy  Alliance  and  of  its  menace  to 
universal  liberty.  To  his  mother,  at  this  time,  he 
confided  the  fact — a  secret  no  longer — of  his  con 
tinued  contributions  to  his  employer's  paper,  and 
expressed  surprise  at  his  own  success,  ' l  seeing  I  do 
not  understand  one  single  rule  of  grammar,  and 
having  a  very  inferior  education." 

After  the  death  of  her  daughter  Elizabeth  in  1822, 
the  mother  was  lonesome  and  longed  to  see  her  son 
once  more.  Accordingly,  in  June,  1823,  almost  a 
year  after  his  sister's  death,  the  young  Garrison  set 
out  by  sea  for  Baltimore,  sailing  from  Boston,  a  city 
which  he  then  saw  for  the  first  time.  The  place 
seemed  inhospitable  to  him,  because  he  was  un 
known.  A  decade  later,  when  he  was  no  stranger 
within  its  gates,  Boston's  mood  was  actively  hostile, 
not  passively  indifferent.  The  meeting  of  mother 
and  son  after  a  separation  of  seven  years  was  to  be 
their  last,  for  shortly  following  his  return,  she  died 
at  the  early  age  of  forty-five,  worn  by  her  labors  and 
the  burden  selfishly  or  insanely  laid  upon  her  by  her 
faithless  husband. 

Federal  politics,  more  bitter  as  the  Federalist  in 
fluence  grew  less,  engaged  the  young  printer's  spare 
time,  and,  under  the  signature  of  "  Aristides,1'  he 
defended  the  acrid  "Tim"  Pickering,  and  other 
wise  kept  in  the  field  as  a  writer  on  public  matters. 
Among  his  friends  at  this  time  was  a  youth  named 
Isaac  Knapp,  who  was  importantly  associated  with 


56  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABBISON 

Garrison  some  years  later.  As  Frauklin  was  a 
leading  spirit  in  the  "  Junto"  among  youth  of 
similar  condition  in  life,  so  Garrison  was  active  in 
a  debating  club.  Earnestness,  not  frivolity,  took 
possession  of  both  these  men  at  a  critical  period. 
Yet  the  Wanderlust  was  not  unknown  to  the  ambi 
tious  printer  of  Newburyport.  He  felt  the  impulse 
which  took  a  great  American,  Samuel  G.  Howe, 
and  a  yet  greater  Englishman,  Lord  Byron,  to  the 
war  for  Greek  independence.  West  Point  even  did 
not  seem  to  him  then,  as  it  did  some  years  later,  the 
least  desirable  of  human  goals.  But  these  were 
healthy  yearnings,  and  strengthening  to  the  natural 
sanity  of  his  character. 

Finishing  his  apprenticeship  on  the  Herald  at  the 
end  of  1825,  Garrison,  in  March  of  the  following 
year,  issued  the  first  number  of  the  Free  Press, 
which  succeeded  the  Essex  Courant,  owned  by  Kuapp 
but  abandoned  necessarily  by  him  on  account  of  his 
health.  Garrison's  old  master,  Allen,  stood  back  of 
the  enterprise.  Always  fond  of  a  motto,  Garrison 
gave  his  paper  the  sounding  one  of  "  Our  Country, 
Our  Whole  Country,  and  Nothing  but  Our  Coun 
try," — a  sentiment  which  he  later  utterly  repudiated. 
With  an  independence  well  in  advance  of  an  era 
when  partisanship  was  the  breath  of  men's  nostrils, 
the  bold  editor  and  publisher  promised  brave  things 
of  his  paper.  "  It  shall  be  subservient  to  no  party 
or  body  of  men  :  and  neither  the  craven  fear  of  loss, 
nor  the  threats  of  the  disappointed,  nor  the  influence 
of  power,  shall  ever  awe  one  single  opinion  into 
silence, "  It  was  a  sonorous,  perhaps  an  arrogant 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEARS  57 

declaration,  but  it  was  sincere,  and  prophetic  of  that 
far  simpler  sentence,  with  which  Garrison  was  soon 
to  throw  out  the  Liberator  as  a  banner  to  the  winds, 
in  defiance  of  all  the  wealth,  power  and  learning  of 
a  country  already  conscious  of  its  possibilities  and 
conscious  too  that  it  was  under  conviction  of  sin. 
The  orotund  and  intensely  prosaic  style  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  so  evident  in  the  writings  of 
nearly  all  our  own  publicists,  was  an  inheritance  to 
the  generation  in  which  Garrison  found  himself. 
He  was  not  by  any  means  free  from  the  influence  of 
this  style,  for  he  had  founded  his  mode  of  expres 
sion  on  obvious  models,  and  the  new  influence  be 
ginning  to  come  here  from  abroad  was  still  academic 
and  confined  to  trained  minds.  In  spite  of  all  this 
conventional  influence,  however,  Garrison  was  be 
ginning  to  make  his  own  style,  and  to  say  things  in 
exactly  the  way  he  wished  to  say  them.  He  was 
supported  in  his  efforts  by  that  potent  aid,  necessity, 
for  he  was  obliged  to  compose  his  editorials  in  type, 
not  on  paper,  and  thus,  because  the  setting  of  type 
is  and  always  will  be  laborious,  he  inevitably 
gained  in  power  of  compression  and  of  definite 
statement.  The  issue  for  May  18, 1826,  contains  his 
earliest  significant  reference  to  the  evil  of  negro 
slavery,  in  a  commendation  of  a  just  published  poem 
on  "  Africa,"  written  by  a  young  woman.  A 
month  later  he  again  refers  editorially  to  the  "«un- 
chiding  eye,"  as  the  poetess  terms  it,  of  the  nation 
on  this  forbidden  topic. 

About  this  time  he  received  a  poem,  written  in 
the  metrical  fashion  of  Wood  worth's  "  Old  Oaken 


58  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKBISON 

Bucket"  by  one  signing  himself  "  W.,  Haverhill," 
who  soon  proved  to  be  Whittier,  then  making  shoes 
at  East  Haverhill  and  inclined,  as  few  cobblers  have 
been,  to  stick  to  his  last  until  dragged  unwillingly 
into  such  glare  of  publicity  as  the  restricted  circula 
tion  of  the  Free  Press  could  give  him.  The  story  of 
the  discovery  of  the  shy  poet  by  the  editor  who,  be 
yond  a  kindly,  generous  heart,  and  a  persistent 
character,  had  few  opportunities  to  play  the  part  of 
Maecenas,  belongs  to  American  literature.  But  the 
friendship  between  them,  all-important  to  both  in 
another  and  perhaps  greater  sense,  lasted  during 
life,  though  there  was  a  time  when  Whittier,  who 
was  far  more  of  a  politician  than  Garrison,  could 
not  follow  all  his  friend's  conclusions. 

After  six  months  the  Free  Press  was  sold  and  at 
once  changed  its  politics,  to  support  the  candidature 
of  Caleb  Gushing  for  Congress  ;  in  three  months 
more  it  had  ceased  to  exist.  Garrison  at  least 
found  by  this  experience  that  an  independent  editor 
would  "  hardly  be  praised  for  his  labors.'7  A 
few  months'  work  as  a  journeyman  printer,  and 
Garrison  parted  company  with  Newburyport,  but  not 
before  he  had  attacked  Caleb  Gushing  in  a  public 
meeting  held  in  behalf  of  the  latter.  December, 
1826,  found  him  in  Boston,  on  his  third  visit  to  that 
place.  Generously  suffered  to  stay,  without  present 
means,  at  a  boarding-house  kept  by  one  Bennett, 
then  printing,  under  the  editorship  of  David  Lee 
Child,  the  Massachusetts  Weekly  Journal,  it  was  some 
weeks  before  Garrison  found  employment.  During 
the  following  year  he  worked  in  not  fewer  and 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEARS  59 

probably  in  more  than  four  different  places,  among 
them  in  Child's  office.  Discouragement  over  the 
outlook  for  a  livelihood  did  not  weaken  his  interest 
in  politics,  and  he  dashed  with  ardor  into  an  unsuc 
cessful  movement  to  nominate  Harrison  Gray  Otis 
to  Congress,  vice  Daniel  Webster,  who  had  been 
elected  to  the  Senate.  This  precipitate  conduct  on 
the  part  of  so  young  a  stranger  to  the  town  brought 
him  into  a  lively  controversy  in  the  Boston  Courier 
with  an  unknown  signing  himself  "  S.,"  who  accused 
Garrison  of  verbosity,  forth-putting  conduct,  and 
youthful  impudence.  Garrison,  like  the  young 
Chatham,  or  rather  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  for  him, 
resented  the  imputation  that  youth  was  a  crime, 
and  not  without  dignity  asserted  that  obscure  as  he 
might  be  then,  his  name  would  "  one  day  be  known 
to  all  the  world."  It  was  an  early  instance  of  Gar 
rison's  skill  in  pressing  in  through  any  weak  part  of 
an  adversary's  defense. 

Life  under  larger  conditions  soon  began  to  do 
Garrison  good ;  he  went  to  churches  of  various 
denominations,  though  still  clinging  to  his  own — * 
the  Baptist — and  even  admired  at  long  social  range 
the  charms  of  Miss  Emily  Marshall,  who  later 
married  a  son  of  that  Otis  whose  cause  the  young 
stranger  had  championed.  In  the  spring  of  1828, 
Garrison  became  co-editor  and  publisher  of  the 
National  Philanthropist,  with  Nathaniel  H.  White,  a 
roommate  at  the  house  of  William  Collier,  who  had 
established  this  first  unqualified  total  abstinence 
paper  ever  issued,  and  who  disposed  of  his  venture 
to  these  young  men  after  two  years  of  struggle  to 


60  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARKISON 

make  a  one-ideaed  enterprise  profitable.  Garrison's 
reformatory  instincts  now  began  to  assert  them 
selves;  moderate  drinking;  the  "  treating  "  common 
at  May  training  and  other  public  occasions  when  the 
militia  enjoyed  a  foretaste  of  the  debauchery  of  war 
without  its  perils  ;  the  drunkenness  at  house-raisings 
and  ship- launch  ings — these  and  all  forms  of  intem 
perance  were  ardently  assailed.  Needless  to  say, 
the  public  did  not  ardently  support  a  paper  which 
dealt  so  ungraciously  with  its  cherished  indulgences. 
The  young  editor  now  began  to  show  his  appetite 
for  universal  reform  ;  he  launched  forth  vigorously 
not  only  against  intemperance,  anc|  temperance  too 
for  that  matter,  but  also  against  Sabbath  breaking, 
lotteries,  infidelity  ;  proclaimed  the  virtues  of  peace  ; 
and  began  thus  early  to  recognize  the  desirability  of 
securing  the  aid  of  women  on  equal  terms  in  plans 
for  social  advancement.  In  January,  1828,  he  wrote 
some  forceful  words  against  the  bill  passed  by  the 
South  Carolina  legislature  forbidding  the  teaching  of 
negroes  to  read  and  write,  and  in  March  first  met 
the  man  who  was  to  concentrate  his  moral  and  in 
tellectual  vigor  upon  one  absorbing  and  dominating 
purpose.  Benjamin  Lundy,  a  New  Jersey  Quaker, 
and  a  saddler  by  trade,  had  then  just  passed  his 
thirty-ninth  birthday.  For  thirteen  years  already 
he  had  been  persistently  talking  and  writing  against 
human  slavery  in  all  its  forms.  After  some  tenta 
tive  newspaper  work,  and  the  loss  of  much  of  the 
money  he  had  accumulated  at  his  trade,  he  issued  in 
July,  1821,  at  Mount  Pleasant,  O.,  the  Genius  of 
Universal  Emancipation.  It  was  the  legitimate  sue- 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEARS  61 

cessur  in  spirit  of  Elihu  Embree's  Emancipator, 
started  the  year  previous  in  Tennessee,  and  far  more 
radical  than  the  Rev.  John  Finley  Crow's  rather 
tame  Abolition  Intelligencer,  issued  at  Shelbyville, 
Ky.,  in  1822,  though  to  him  we  owe  the  telling 
phrase  '  *  soul-peddling  "  as  his  synonym  for  slave- 
selling.  In  the  words  of  the  Garrisons,  the  news 
paper  l '  was  begun  without  a  dollar  of  capital,  and 
with  only  six  subscribers." 

No  small  part  of  Lundy's  time  was  spent  in  travel 
ing  on  foot  and  rarely  on  horseback,  to  carry  out 
his  unalterable  plans.  After  three  years,  during 
which  his  paper  gradually  throve,  it  was  moved 
from  Tennessee,  whither  he  had  taken  it,  to  Balti 
more,  nearer  the  seat  of  coming  warfare — the  editor 
walking  the  whole  distance,  and  so  wing  good  reform 
seed,  especially  among  members  of  his  sect,  as  he 
passed  on.  Lundy's  obscurity  and  the  breadth  of 
his  program,  which  called  for  " gradual"  eman 
cipation  of  the  slave,  saved  him  from  odium  at 
Baltimore,  which  was  as  ready  as  he  to  favor  any 
intelligent  scheme  for  the  colonization  of  people  of 
color.  The  Genius  later  became  a  weekly  paper, 
and  continued  to  grow,  while  the  editor  pushed  his 
influence  by  journeys,  meetings,  and  the  formation 
of  societies.  Lundy  reached  Boston,  by  way  of 
Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Providence,  making 
powerful  friends  to  his  cause  on  the  journey,  and 
there  met  the  most  potent  character  of  all  whom  he 
was  to  influence.  The  earnest,  undersized  peripa 
tetic,  devoid  of  the  charms  of  oratory,  and  afflicted 
with  the  infirmity  of  deafness,  soon  found  a  warm 


62  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

enthusiast  in  the  well-nigh  physically  perfect  Gar 
rison.  He  was  not  so  welcome  to  the  Laodicean 
clergymen  in  Boston,  who  hated  slavery  enough  to 
recommend  Lundy  7s  paper  as  safe  reading,  but  who 
were  unwilling  to  rouse  their  city  from  its  comfort 
able  moral  slumber  by  helping  to  start  an  auti- 
slavery  society.  It  did  not  then  seem  probable  that 
the  unawakened  young  giant,  now  only  twenty-two 
years  old,  although  he  cordially  approved  Luudy's 
work  in  the  columns  of  the  Philanthropist,  would 
be  the  one  to  carry  it  far  beyond  the  bounds  set  by 
that  devoted  reformer.  But  in  this  first  visit,  the 
fructifying  seed  was  sown  in  Garrison's  mind.  It 
took  a  second  visit  a  few  months  later  for  Lundy  to 
discover  that  "  philanthropists  are  the  slowest 
creatures  breathing."  A  foretaste  of  coming  ex 
periences  was  had  by  Lundy  when  he  made  a  public 
address  for  the  first  time  in  Boston  on  August  7, 
1828.  This  was  reported  by  Garrison,  who  had 
meanwhile  given  up  the  Philanthropist.  Lundy's 
proposition  to  start  petitions  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia — the  forerunner 
of  those  petitions  which  in  the  fast  approaching 
years  were  to  make  so  much  trouble  in  national 
legislation  and  to  keep  the  agitation  against  slavery 
alive  whenever  it  seemed  to  languish — was  too 
radical  for  the  taste  of  the  pastor  of  the  Federal 
Street  Baptist  Church  where  Lundy  was  speaking, 
and  he  closed  the  meeting.  Lundy,  writing  later  to 
Garrison,  of  whom  he  now  felt  sure,  reminded  him 
that  everything  in  his  endeavor  depended  "  on 
activity  and  steady  perseverance,7'  but  that  the 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEAES  63 

labor  "  would  mostly  fall  on  the  shoulders  of  a  few." 
He  certainly  happened  on  a  coadjutor  with  the 
needed  qualities  and  the  patient  shoulders.  During 
this  very  month  Garrison  was  writing  to  John  Neal, 
the  peppery  editor  of  the  Yankee,  who  had  been 
twitting  him  on  his  obscurity,  that  his  name  would 
' '  one  day  be  known  so  extensively  as  to  render 
private  inquiry  unnecessary. "  "The  task,"  he 
closes,  with  pardonable  incision,  "  may  be  yours  to 
write  my  biography." 

Garrison,  when  young,  seems  to  have  been  a 
partisan  in  politics,  as  he  was  in  religion.  The 
conservatism  of  youth,  so  often  seen  in  those  who 
become  more  radical  as  they  grow  older,  has  been 
held  to  be  a  sign  in  the  heavens  of  the  development 
of  an  able  man.  The  doctrine  holds  true  in 
Garrison's  case ;  for  until  he  had  found  a  vantage- 
ground  for  his  uncommon  moral  activities,  it  was 
natural  that  he  should  exercise  them  in  the  defense 
of  those  in  whom  he  believed.  In  Newburyport  he 
had  championed  party  views,  in  spite  of  protesta 
tions  of  independence,  and  his  coming  to  Boston 
began,  as  has  been  seen,  with  an  attempt  politically 
to  aid  the  cause  of  Harrison  Gray  Otis.  It  is  not 
surprising,  therefore,  to  find  that  Garrison,  as  the 
national  campaign  of  1828  was  opening,  accepted 
the  editorship  of  a  paper,  to  be  published  in 
Bennington,  Vt.,  for  the  purpose  of  advocating  the 
reelection  of  John  Quiucy  Adams,  and  opposing 
the  candidacy  of  Andrew  Jackson.  Started  as  late 
as  October  in  1828,  the  year  of  the  national  election, 
and  published  at  two  dollars  a  year,  the  Journal 


64  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

of  the  Times,  if  partisan,  was  neither  subservient 
nor  narrow.  The  newcomer  in  Benniugton  pro 
claimed  independence  as  his  standard  and  assailed 
as  the  most  despicable  and  degraded  of  beings  the 
''time-serving,  shuffling,  truckling  editor."  The 
suppression  of  intemperance,  the  gradual  emanci 
pation  of  the  slave,  the  perpetuity  of  national 
peace,  the  cause  of  popular,  practical  education, 
and  the  encouragement  of  industries  by  means  of 
the  American  System — these  were  side  issues  to  be 
advanced  along  with  the  candidacy  of  the  younger 
Adams,  of  whom  Garrison  did  not  then,  or  perhaps 
ever,  pretend  to  be  especially  fond.  It  was  not  in 
the  temperament  of  either  to  love  the  other,  but  the 
time  came  when  mutual  respect  was  inevitable. 
The  violence  of  his  attacks  on  Jackson  left  nothing 
to  be  desired,  though  with  a  journalist's  instinct 
Garrison  seems  to  have  presaged  the  defeat  of  his 
own  side.  From  the  first,  as  far  as  his  limited 
space  allowed,  he  urged  the  formation  of  anti- 
si  avery  societies,  mainly,  however,  with  a  view  to 
advancing  the  propaganda  of  colonization.  Within 
a  month  he  had  written  and  set  in  motion  a 
petition  to  Congress  for  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  on  the  only  ground 
then  tenable — that  such  abolition  would  interfere 
with  the  rights  of  no  state.  In  a  few  weeks, 
through  the  hearty  cooperation  of  the  postmasters 
of  Vermont,  he  had  secured  considerably  over  two 
thousand  names  throughout  the  state,  and  the  peti 
tion  was  presented  on  January  26,  1829.  Earlier 
in  this  month  the  motion  of  Representative  Charles 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEAES  65 

Miner  of  Pennsylvania  for  legislation  tending  to 
gradual  abolition  in  the  District  had  been  sup 
ported  by  a  decided  majority.  The  Vermont  pe 
tition  fared  badly  before  the  Committee  on  the 
District  of  Columbia,  which  frowned  heavily  on 
such  attempts  to  disturb  prevailing  conditions  and 
maintained  that  the  local  slave-trade  was  often  a 
benefit  to  the  slaves  by  removing  them  to  other 
fields  of  enforced  labor.  To-day  this  suggestion 
reads  like  the  finest  irony,  but  at  that  time  it 
only  showed  that  the  South,  which  appeared  to 
take  suggestions  of  a  remote  and  "gradual" 
emancipation  with  reasonable  complaisance,  was 
quick  to  resent,  as  it  did  through  this  committee, 
any  movement  so  radical  as  the  Garrison  petition. 

Working  with  zeal  and  ability,  the  young 
country  editor  put  his  best  into  the  Journal  of  the 
Times,  and  upheld  without  flinching  such  reforms 
as  seemed  vital.  No  religious  doubts  at  this  time 
had  begun  to  disturb  his  orthodoxy,  for  he  had 
not  found  out,  as  he  did  later,  that  when  belief  and 
self-interest  did  not  square,  it  was  not  self-interest 
which  usually  suffered.  He  even  dressed  with  no 
ticeable  care,  made  and  retained  valuable  friend 
ships,  and  was  an  orderly  and  a  well-conducted 
citizen.  This  period  of  his  life,  in  spite  of  hard 
and  efficacious  work,  was  one  of  incubation  and 
strengthening  for  trials  soon  to  come. 

Meanwhile  Benjamin  Lundy,  watchful  at  all 
times  lest  his  adherents  should  waver,  had  made 
sure  that  Garrison  was  to  be  counted  upon  ;  al 
though  in  the  columns  of  his  Genius  he  had  found 


66  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISON 

it  advisable  to  strengthen  his  young  convert's  pur 
pose  by  praising  his  loyalty  to  the  cause  of  emanci 
pation.  In  the  flush  of  dawning  success,  Garrison 
was  persuaded  by  Lundy,  who  had  gone  afoot 
from  Baltimore  to  Benniugtou,  to  become  the  active 
editor  of  the  Genius,  while  Luudy  should  continue 
his  walks  about  the  country  to  secure  more  sub 
scribers  and  thus  also  sow  more  seeds  of  reform. 
The  last  editorial  by  Garrison  in  the  Journal  ap 
peared  on  March  27,  1829,  announcing  that  the 
time  had  now  come  for  him  to  "  engage  in  a  higher 
enterprise"  in  behalf  of  the  slave  population. 
"I  trust  in  God,"  he  adds,  "  that  I  may  be  the 
humble  instrument  of  breaking  at  least  one  chain, 
and  restoring  one  captive  to  liberty  ;  it  will  amply 
repay  a  life  of  severe  toil."  The  keynote  of  his 
endeavor  was  struck  in  his  statement,  "  Eeason 
has  prevailed  with  me  more  than  popular  opinion. " 
Never  was  choice  more  deliberate  or  more  mature 
in  so  young  and  ardent  a  man.  He  gave  up  a 
definite  and  practical  work,  already  showing  good 
return,  for  another  of  the  greatest  uncertainty  and 
wholly  without  promise  of  concrete  achievement  or 
ultimate  results. 

Garrison's  career  in  Bennington  must  have  given 
him  some  reputation,  for  on  his  arrival  in  Boston 
on  his  way  southward,  he  was  invited  on  the  Fourth 
of  July  to  address  the  Congregational  churches 
in  behalf  of  colonization.  This  was  not  equal  in 
importance  to  an  invitation  from  the  civic  au 
thorities,  but  it  had  its  significance.  In  Boston 
to  be  thus  requested  by  any  large  body  of  citizens 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEAES  67 

was  at  that  time  a  sort  of  endorsement  of  character. 
The  place  was  Park  Street  Church,  where  a  few 
years  later  "  America  "  was  sung  for  the  first  time, 
and  the  theme  was  "  Dangers  to  the  Nation." 
These  Park  Street  celebrations,  which  had  begun  in 
1823,  were  in  sentiment  partly  religious,  partly 
patriotic,  and  strongly  anti-slavery.  Garrison  was 
the  seventh  orator  in  the  series.  Shortly  before 
Independence  Day,  he  for  the  first  time  suffered 
for  his  opinions.  He  was  obliged  to  submit  to 
the  cost  of  a  writ  and  fine  for  non-appearance 
at  May  training — an  exercise  in  what  he  calls  a 
" sanguinary  school,"  for  which  he  had  no  inclina 
tion.  The  incident  was  slight  but  demonstrated 
that  from  the  start  no  thought  of  compromise  was 
ever  entertained  by  him.  Later  he  suffered  im 
prisonment  and  even  personal  violence.  Private 
and  public  abuse  grew  to  be  the  atmosphere  which 
he  necessarily  inhaled,  because  it  completely  sur 
rounded  him,  but  while  he  never  flinched,  neither 
did  he  ever  show  fight.  His  natural  good-humor 
always  combined  to  turn  what  was  meant  for  stern 
if  misguided  public  disapproval  into  an  ironical 
situation. 

The  oration,  for  such  it  proved  to  be,  was  pre 
ceded  by  an  ode  written  for  the  occasion  by  the 
Eev.  John  Pierpont  and  sung  under  the  leading  of 
Lowell  Mason.  Pierpont  had,  at  about  this  time, 
fallen  somewhat  under  the  displeasure  of  the  public 
through  giving  way  to  his  unfortunate  penchant  for 
telling  the  truth,  even  though  his  words  tweaked 
the  port- wine  noses  of  respectable  Boston.  The 


68  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

orator  first  assailed  prevailing  social  arid  political 
weaknesses,  but,  this  obviously  rhetorical  duty  done, 
plunged  head  down  at  the  national  affliction,  human 
slavery,  * '  debasing  in  its  effect,  cruel  in  its  opera 
tion,  fatal  in  its  continuance."  He  attacked  the 
narrowness  of  conventional  patriotism  in  saying, 
' '  I  pity  the  man  whose  heart  is  not  larger  than  a 
whole  continent"  ;  in  Boston's  central  fane  of 
orthodoxy  he  exclaimed,  "  What  has  Christianity 
done,  by  direct  effort,  for  our  slave  population? 
Comparatively  nothing.  She  has  explored  the  isles 
of  the  ocean  for  objects  of  commiseration ;  but, 
amazing  stupidity !  she  can  gaze  without  einbtion 
on  a  multitude  of  miserable  beings  at  home."  He 
asserted  ' '  the  rights  of  the  free  states  to  demand  a 
gradual  abolition  of  slavery,"  though  he  did  not 
admit  the  right  or  the  disposition  to  use  coercive 
measures.  He  discerned  no  immediate  prospects 
of  emancipation,  but  a  "  collision,  full  of  sharp 
asperities  and  bitterness  .  .  .  with  the  inso 
lence,  and  pride,  and  selfishness,  of  many  a  heart 
less  being."  These  foes  he  expected  to  conquer 
by  ''meekness,  and  perseverance,  and  prayer." 
More  important  than  all  this,  and  sounding  the 
note  of  his  attack  not  on  the  South  but  on  the 
general  deadness  of  conscience,  he  added,  "We  are 
all  alike  guilty.  Slavery  is  strictly  a  national  sin  ; 
New  England  money  has  been  expended  in  buying 
human  flesh ;  New  England  ships  have  been 
freighted  with  sable  victims ;  New  England  men 
have  assisted  in  forging  the  fetters  of  those  who 
groan  in  bondage."  Leaving  this  cud  of  bitter  re- 


THE  TENTATIVE  YEABS  69 

flection  for  self-righteous  yet  thoughtful  Boston,  he 
started  soon  upon  his  southward  journey.  The  late 
Kev.  Leonard  Woolsey  Bacon,  son  of  that  more 
illustrious  Rev.  Leonard  Bacon,  the  champion  of 
colonization  who  once  admitted  publicly  that 
"he  rarely  spoke  of  the  devil  in  the  pulpit  and 
never  of  Mr.  Garrison,"  said  of  this  oration  by 
the  young  editor:  u  He  could  repeat  the  familiar 
commonplaces  of  his  six  predecessors  as  if  they 
were  startling  novelties  and  speak  of  the  slaves,  the 
subjects  of  more  thought,  sympathy,  prayer  and 
self-denying  effort  than  any  other  class  of  people 
in  the  country,  as  those  *over  whose  sufferings 
scarcely  an  eye  weeps  or  a  heart  melts  or  a  tongue 
pleads  either  to  God  or  man,'  for  whom  i Chris 
tianity  has  done  by  direct  effort  comparatively 
nothing7  " — an  excellent  epitome  of  the  anti-Garri 
son  sentiment. 

The  close  of  this  first  portion  of  his  career  leaves 
him  not  yet  clear  as  to  the  precise  course  to  follow, 
but  committed  to  attack  in  some  fashion  the  vexing 
problem  of  human  bondage. 


CHAPTEE  III 

EDITOR  AND  PAMPHLETEER 

LUNDY,  who,  since  leaving  his  new  partner  in 
Bennington,  had  gone  to  Hayti  with  some  emanci 
pated  slaves  and  had  returned,  was  waiting  for 
Garrison  when  the  latter  arrived  in  Baltimore  in 
August,  1829.  This  patient  yet  restless  soul  would 
doubtless  have  been  content  to  go  on  indefinitely 
proclaiming  the  evils  of  slavery,  scouring  the 
country  for  subscribers  or  disciples,  starting  new 
societies,  and  wearing  out  mind  and  body  by  his 
exhausting  labors.  It  was  not  so,  however,  with 
Garrison,  who  had  already  suffered  a  sea- change, 
and  was  now  dissatisfied  with  the  rhetorical  pro 
gram  of  his  Fourth  of  July  address.  Still  trusting 
in  the  methods  of  Providence,  he  saw  his  way  to 
accelerate  their  progress  by  a  demand  for  immediate, 
not  gradual  emancipation.  The  wonder  is  that  in  a 
practical  and  direct  character  like  his  the  doctrine 
of  gradualism  could  so  long  have  found  lodgment. 
He  was  now  decided,  and  Lundy  was  obliged  to 
make  a  pact  by  which  each  should  sign  his  own 
initials  to  articles  printed  in  the  Genius  of  Uni 
versal  Emancipation,  which  for  the  last  five  of  its 
eight  years  had  been  issued  weekly.  During  the 
editor's  trip  to  Hayti  the  paper  had  had  one  of  its 
intervals  of  rest — this  time  eight  months — and  was 


EDITOR  AND  PAMPHLETEER  71 

now  ready  for  steady  work  under  the  new  manage 
ment,  with  James  Cropper  of  Liverpool  engaged  to 
furnish  information  as  to  the  state  of  the  public 
mind  in  Great  Britain  over  the  now  active  move 
ment  for  emancipation  in  the  West  Indies. 

Lundy,  who,  like  Garrison,  preferred  Hayti  to 
Liberia,  and  was  suspicious  of  the  American 
Colonization  Society,  tested  the  sincerity  of  "  hu 
mane  conscientious  slaveholders ' '  by  offering, 
through  a  standing  advertisement,  to  transport, 
free  of  cost,  a  considerable  number  of  slaves  to 
Hayti,  provided  that  they  were  trained  to  agricul 
ture  or  mechanical  pursuits.  Slaveholders  were 
either  lackiug  in  a  passion  for  humanity,  or  else, 
as  is  quite  likely,  failed  to  see  the  Genius,  for 
nothing  came  of  this  liberal  and  genuine  offer. 

Garrison's  opinions  were  now  crystallizing  rap 
idly.  Not  only  was  he  beginning  to  distrust  the 
ingenuousness  of  the  Colonization  Society,  though 
he  did  not  yet  break  with  it,  but  he  was  coming  to 
see  the  hostile  animus  in  the  South  against  the 
free  negro.  At  about  this  time  he  announced  one 
of  his  dogmas — and  they  were  many  :  the  perfect 
equality  of  all  portions  of  the  human  race.  Given 
the  same  chance,  the  result  would  be  "  equally 
brilliant,  equally  productive,  equally  grand,"  no 
matter  uhow  many  breeds  are  amalgamated."  It 
may  be  said  here  that  the  word  "biology"  in  its 
present  sense  was  not  born  until  after  Garrison's 
ideas  had  become  fixed.  Whether,  had  he  known 
the  postulates  of  this  new  phase  of  scientific  thought, 
he  would  in  any  wise  have  modified  his  own  extreme 


72  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISON 

opinions,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  But  it  is  safe  to 
assert  that  had  the  scientific  advance,  under  such 
headship  as  that  of  Charles  Darwin,  reached  the 
point  in  1830  at  which  it  had  arrived  forty  years 
later,  there  had  been  no  such  extremists  in  their 
sphere  of  social  ethics  as  William  Lloyd  Garrison 
and  his  followers. 

There  still  lingers  in  the  public  mind  a  belief 
that  had  the  national  government  contrived  a  plan 
to  buy  the  slaves  of  their  owners,  in  some  way  the 
loss  and  the  cost  of  the  Civil  War  might  have  been 
avoided.  Garrison  thus  early  did  not  favor  such  a 
compromise  as  national  purchase.  Slavery  was 
wrong,  and  a  bargain  with  slaveholders  was  com 
pounding  a  felony.  Justice  and  not  a  trade  was 
what  he  demanded  in  the  Genius.  He  was  warm  in 
his  opposition  to  the  making  and  selling  of  ardent 
spirits  ;  he  cried  loudly  against  the  breaches  of 
faith  with  the  Georgia  Indians  ;  he  early  favored— 
though  mildly — the  boycott  of  the  products  of  slave 
labor  :  in  these  and  various  other  reforms,  he  was 
zealous  in  the  columns  of  Lundy's  paper.  But  he 
still  kept  within  his  religious  circumscriptions,  and, 
strangely  enough,  was  wholly  conservative  as  re 
gards  the  greater  political  freedom  of  women — even 
dubbing  a  petition  of  some  Pennsylvania  women 
for  recognition  of  the  rights  of  Indians,  "an  un 
called-for  interference.'' 

While  Lundy  and  Garrison  were  thus  working 
faithfully  together  and  at  the  same  time  pulling 
slowly  apart,  not  in  hostility  but  like  vessels  bound 
on  the  same  long  errand,  each  on  its  individual 


1  <m   -  A'VY          2. 

jm^^^Sm 

EDITOR  AND  PAMPHLETEER  73 

course  into  wider  seas,  a  few  things  of  import 
to  their  cause  were  happening.  Guerrero,  the 
President  of  Mexico,  had  emancipated  some  ten 
thousand  slaves  in  that  country,  then  including 
Texas.  This  territory  was  already  marked  as  the 
vantage-ground  where  slavery  could  be  strength 
ened,  provided  that  it  could  be  brought  by  some 
means  into  the  Union — a  scheme  which  the  un 
worldly  but  not  unobservant  Lundy  was  quick  to 
denounce.  The  inoperative  American  Convention 
for  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  held  its  twenty-first 
biennial  session  late  in  the  year  1829,  and  repeated 
its  usual  program  of  doing  nothing  to  anger  the 
South  or  to  arouse  the  North.  The  condition  of 
this  "  convention,"  which  first  met  in  Philadelphia 
in  1794,  is  clearly  shown  by  the  fact  that  it  held  its 
next  and  last  meeting  in  1838.  But  while  these 
incidents  were  taking  place,  something  vital  oc 
curred  to  show  that  the  South  was  watchful,  if  not 
alarmed.  * l  Walker' s  Appeal, ' '  published  by  David 
Walker,  a  Boston  negro,  attacked  ably  and  with 
vigor  the  policy  of  the  Colonization  Society,  and 
naturally  assailed  the  whole  institution  of  slavery. 
Its  third  edition  (1830)  countenanced  slave  insur 
rections — a  horror  of  which  the  South  had  always 
been  genuinely  afraid  ;  but  even  before  the  edition 
appeared,  Garrison  had  written  in  the  Genius  that 
he  " deprecated"  the  circulation  of  this  powerful 
essay.  A  price  was  set  on  the  head  of  the  author, 
who,  happily  perhaps  for  him,  died  a  few  months 
later,  though  not  before  the  Mayor  of  Boston 
(Harrison  Gray  Otis)  had  found  it  necessary  to 


74  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKK1SON 

answer  demands  from  the  South  for  his  punishment. 
It  is  not  wholly  clear  at  this  day  why  Garrison, 
even  in  this  period  of  his  development,  should  have 
regarded  the  pamphlet  as  " most  injudicious"  ;  he 
had  already  denounced  slavery  in  the  abstract  in 
equally  violent  terms.  The  precipitation  of  a  crisis 
is  seldom  injudicious  from  the  revolutionary  point 
of  view,  and  it  was  fortunate  for  Garrison's  cause 
that  the  "Appeal  "  produced  in  one  Southern  state 
(Georgia)  a  stringent  law,  forbidding  the  admission 
of  free  blacks,  or  the  teaching  of  any  blacks,  slave 
or  free,  to  read  or  write,  and  making  it  a  capital 
offense  to  circulate  pamphlets  of  "evil  tendency 
among  our  domestics.'' 

Now  at  last  Garrison  was  to  suffer  a  little  for  the 
very  truth's  sake — the  truth,  as  he  saw  it  and  spoke 
it  and  wrote  it. 

Thus  far  he  had  been  let  alone  and  allowed  to 
say  and  write  what  he  pleased — a  tolerance  not 
wholly  satisfactory  even  to  the  most  philosophic  of 
reformers.  But  when  in  the  Genius  he  accused 
Francis  Todd  of  Newburyport  of  engaging  in  the 
domestic  slave-trade  between  Baltimore  and  New 
Orleans,  he  found  Lundy  and  himself  involved  in  a 
suit  for  libel  brought  by  Todd,  and  in  an  action  for 
publishing  the  alleged  libel  brought  by  the  Grand 
Jury  of  Maryland.  Though  well  defended  at  the 
trial,  Garrison  was  found  guilty  on  the  state  of 
Maryland's  charge.  Unable  to  pay  the  fine  and 
costs,  about  one  hundred  dollars  in  all,  he  was  im 
prisoned  for  seven  weeks  in  Baltimore  jail  begin 
ning  April  17,  1830 — as  innocent  and  pure-minded 


EDITOR  AND  PAMPHLETEER  75 

a  culprit  as  ever  found  himself  on  the  wrong  side 
of  prison- bars.  Several  results  ensued  from  this 
legal  restraint  of  the  young  editor.  The  partner 
ship  with  Lundy  was  dissolved,  and  the  Geniw 
of  Universal  Emancipation  was  henceforth  issued 
monthly,  the  weekly  issue  having  ceased  on  March 
5,  1830.  Captain  Nicholas  Brown,  who  carried 
the  slaves  in  the  ship  Francis,  never  carried  another 
live  cargo,  nor  did  the  respectable  Mr.  Todd  hence 
forth  undertake  to  send  one. 

No  man  ever  demonstrated  more  faithfully  that 
' l  stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make ' '  than  the  new 
denizen  of  Baltimore  jail.  He  helped  and  encouraged 
the  prisoners  ;  he  remonstrated  with  the  owners  of 
runaway  slaves  ("slavites"  is  a  word  apparently 
of  his  own  coining)  ;  be  often  sat  at  the  warden's 
table,  wrote  a  pamphlet  on  his  trial,  and  on  the 
walls  of  his  cell  or  " multicapsular  apartment,"  as 
he  termed  it,  inscribed  one  of  his  best  sonnets  be 
ginning,  "High  walls  and  huge  the  body  may  con 
fine.  "  Other  sonnets  and  verses  followed  under 
the  stimulus  of  confinement  without  contrition  for 
having  done  right.  With  no  close  resemblance, 
these  poetical  effusions  recall  John  Bunyan's  much 
less  melodious  efforts  under  similar  conditions.  Gar 
rison's  powers  of  versification  and  his  ability  to  make 
an  apt  Latin  quotation  whenever  he  needed  one,  are 
not  easily  explicable,  when  we  consider  that  al 
though  he  was  not  an  ignorant  man,  he  could  not 
fairly  be  called  an  educated  one.  Franklin  also  had 
the  fashion  of  using  Latin  whenever  he  needed  it. 
This  facility  in  these  two  remarkable  men  may  per- 


76  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARIilSON 

haps  be  attributed  to  tlie  educatioiial  influence  of 
the  printer's  case. 

To  this  by  no  means  dismal,  but  very  persistent 
cry  from  the  tombs,  now  couched  in  verse  and  again 
in  wonderfully  vigorous  prose,  the  country  at  large 
began  to  make  answer.  Newspapers  mentioned  and 
often  espoused  the  cause  of  this  happy  warrior,  who 
was  not  beating  against  his  bars  but  was  getting  a 
larger  audience  than  he  had  when  free.  Even 
Henry  Clay,  the  most  lovable  opportunist  of  Amer 
ican  political  history,  was  inclined,  through  the  in 
tercession  of  Whittier,  to  help  pay  the  fine,  but 
Arthur  Tappan,  of  New  York,  the  warm-hearted 
sustainer  of  many  good  causes,  with  whom  Garrison 
afterward  had  occasion  to  disagree,  preceded  him 
with  money  for  the  editor's  release,  which  took 
place  on  June  5th.  It  was  long  before  such  a  rest 
came  again  into  Garrison's  life. 

Calling  on  Tappan  on  his  way  home,  he  soon 
reached  Newburyport,  a  far  better  known  man  than 
when  he  last  left  it.  By  July  he  was  back  in  Bal 
timore,  aided  by  the  receipt  through  Lundy  of  one 
hundred  dollars  from  an  entire  stranger,  Ebenezer 
Dole,  of  Hallowell,  Me.,  a  gift  which  he  accepted, 
with  characteristic  simplicity  and  openness,  as  a 
loan  on  interest.  He  had  returned  to  Baltimore, 
after  an  unsuccessful  attempt  at  home,  to  get  means 
to  revive  the  weekly  publication  of  the  Genius,  and 
to  face  Todd's  personal  suit  for  libel,  but  was 
unable  to  wait  until  the  trial  in  the  fall.  The 
suit  being  uncon tested,  a  verdict  was  rendered  for 
the  plaintiff  with  damages  for  one  thousand  dol- 


ED1TOE  AND  PAMPHLETEER  77 

lars,  with  the  loser  outside  of  the  Maryland  juris 
diction. 

Garrison  then  did  the  inevitable  thing,  for  in 
August  he  issued  a  prospectus  for  an  abolition 
paper  to  be  published  in  Washington  and  called  the 
Public  Liberator  and  Journal  of  the  Times.  It  was  to 
oppose  war,  and  the  distillation,  importation,  sell 
ing,  drinking  or  offering  to  drink,  of  alcoholic 
liquors,  and  was  to  give  "a  dignified  support  to 
Henry  Clay  and  the  American  System." 

In  the  fall  of  1830  he  lectured  in  Philadelphia  and 
in  New  York,  but  attracted  no  special  attention,  ex 
cept  among  those  whose  sympathies  had  already 
been  aroused  against  the  evils  of  slavery.  Of  more 
importance  to  him  was  the  meeting  at  this  time  with 
James  and  Lucretia  Mott.  Still  narrow  in  his  re 
ligious  views,  he  was  touched  by  their  broad  spirit. 
With  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  he  did  not  get  on  so  well. 
"  The  Jesuitry  of  his  reasoning"  struck  Garrison, 
and  time  did  not  heal  the  breach  which  opened  at 
their  first  meeting  over  the  question  of  colonization. 
All  the  hard  words  ever  uttered  against  this  worthy 
champion  of  a  more  moderate  policy  by  the  never 
compromising,  never  conciliatory  radical  have  been 
paid  back  with  equal  vehemence  by  Dr.  Bacon's 
son. 

It  had  taken  Garrison  a  reasonably  long  time  to 
arrive  at  definite  conclusions  and  to  plan  an  offen 
sive  campaign.  It  was  now  becoming  clear  to  him, 
as  his  own  religious  certitudes  became  less  firm, 
that  supineness  on  the  part  of  the  Christian  Church 
and  of  all  denominations  in  it,  was  preventing  the 


78  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEKISON 

acceptance  of  such  doctrines  as  he  would  fain  spread. 
As  was  the  only  course  in  those  days,  he  always 
looked  for  his  audiences  among  people  who  were  in 
terested  in  various  phases  of  moral  and  religious 
welfare — among  the  distinctly  middle  ranks,  the 
general  human  average.  JEte  was  too  wise  from  the 
beginning  to  seek  a  fashionable  hearing,  for  he 
knew  the  spiritual  deadness  of  the  comfortable 
classes.  A  man  with  experience  himself  in  the 
humble  walks  of  life,  he  had  the  advantage  of  know 
ing  that  the  proletarian  is  not  easily  aroused  over 
problems  in  which  his  own  betterment  is  not  in 
volved.  Therefore  he  usually  sought  to  influence 
his  own  kind,  the  earnest  obscure  idealists  of  every 
day  living  who  when  sufficiently  awakened  can  ac 
complish, — and  best  under  democratic  conditions, 
— results  impossible  even  to  great  wealth,  high  po 
sition,  and  transcendent  abilities.  To  move  this 
impressionable  yet  cautious  mass  of  thought,  he 
must  make  a  diversion  in  those  ranks  to  which  his 
constituency  was  still  allied  with  an  attachment  dif 
ficult  to  understand  in  these  days  of  looser,  certainly 
more  tolerant,  religious  bonds.  Already  he  had  be 
gun  to  proclaim  that  a  "  Christian  slaveholder  is  as 
great  a  solecism  as  a  religious  atheist,  a  sober 
drunkard,  or  an  honest  thief,"  but  soon  he  was  to 
strike  nearer  home,  for  he  knew  that  as  long  as  the 
North  was  morally  asleep,  the  South  could  well  af 
ford  to  nod,  with  one  eye  open  for  particularly  ob 
jectionable  assaults  on  its  "peculiar  institution." 
In  his  native  town  he  was  allowed  to  make  one 
speech  in  a  Congregational  church,  and  perhaps 


EDITOK  AND  PAMPHLETEER  79 

might  not  have  had  the  door  shut  against  him  the 
second  night,  had  he  contented  himself  with  por 
traying  the  evils  of  slavery.  Listening  to  such  ad 
dresses  was  then  a  mild  sort  of  pastime  ;  the  blood 
of  the  conventionally  righteous  is  always  gently 
stirred  at  recitals  of  iniquity  sufficiently  remote. 
But  when  Garrison  told  his  fellow  townsmen  that 
New  Englanders  were  * '  equally  culpable  with  the 
slave  dealers  and  slave  owners,"  it  was  more  than 
the  honest,  debt-paying,  God-fearing,  unidealistic 
majority  of  the  church  people  could  stand,  and 
so  Garrison,  letting  fly  a  newspaper  barb  only 
moderately  tipped  with  severity,  left  for  Boston, 
early  in  October,  1830. 

It  was  not  till  the  middle  of  the  month  that  Gar 
rison,  whose  communications  to  the  Boston  Tran 
script  on  his  favorite  topic  had  met  with  a  closure 
from  the  cautious  editor,  could  find  a  hall  in  which 
to  speak — and  this  hall  was  offered  by  freethinkers  to 
one  who  was  still  a  consistent  member  of  the  Baptist 
church.  In  the  audience  met  to  hear  him  were  six 
men  of  prominence,  three  of  whom,  Lynian  Beecher, 
Ezra  Gannett,  and  Moses  Grant,  remained  conserva 
tive  toward  the  anti-slavery  movement,  while  the 
other  three,  Samuel  J.  May,  Samuel  E.  Sewall,  and 
A.  Brousou  Alcott  were  soon  to  be  reckoned  on  the 
radical  side,  though  Alcott  could  never  be  called  a 
true  Garrisonian.  This  early  division  among  chance 
hearers,  three  of  whom  were  ministers,  was  pro 
phetic  of  the  sharp  social  cleavage  soon  to  take 
place  as  this  obscure  man  of  daily  toil  made  himself 
more  and  more  felt.  He  was  now  thoroughly  con- 


80  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

vinced  of  the  disingenuousuess  of  the  colonization 
policy,  and  the  burden  of  his  speech  was  on  this 
subject.  Lynian  Beecher's  coolness  may  easily 
.have  been  more  firmly  set  by  this  attack  on  a  move 
ment  which  naturally  appealed  to  his  more  elderly, 
but  not  ungenerous  mind  as  a  somewhat  imperfect 
yet  not  hopeless  attempt  to  work  toward  a  good  end. 
While  the  leader  of  orthodoxy  shrank  through 
temperament  and  training  from  the  fiery  zeal  of  this 
young  enthusiast,  the  more  receptive  May  was 
warmed  by  new  fires,  and  soon  found  himself  at 
odds  with  the  conservative  side  of  Unitarianism. 
As  a  religious  body,  the  Unitarians,  in  spite  of  their 
successful  schism  perfected  in  the  first  third  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  were  by  no  means  without  cold 
ness  and  reserve  toward  ethical  and  intellectual 
novelties.  At  the  same  time,  when  we  consider  the 
various  attitudes  of  the  general  religious  mind  of  the 
country,  the  balance  is  somewhat  in  favor  of  Uni 
tarianism  as  regards  its  part  in  anti- slavery  annals. 
It  was  cold,  officially,  toward  Transcendentalism,  the 
Brook  Farm  movement,  and  the  more  radical  side 
of  anti-slavery  ;  but  had  there  been  no  Unitarianism, 
with  its  disintegrating  tendency,  the  movement 
under  Garrison  against  a  united  orthodoxy  would 
have  proceeded  less  swiftly.  As  it  was,  just  as  soon 
as  the  whole  anti -slavery  sentiment  gained,  with  the 
next  ten  years,  a  real  footing,  it  came  to  pass  that 
tho  more  centralized  Evangelical  church,  with  its 
machinery,  such  as  the  radicals  never  possessed, 
found  a  way  to  divide  the  now  fast-running  stream 
of  public  opinion  into  channels  shrewdly  contrived 


EDITOR  AND  PAMPHLETEER  81 

to  irrigate  both  orthodoxy  and  a  more  gently 
tempered  sentiment  against  the  sin  of  human 
slavery. 

It  will  be  seen  that  as  long  as  Garrison  dealt  with 
the  personal  conscience,  and  appealed  to  this  and 
that  individual  to  come  over  to  his  way  of  thinking, 
he  was  supremely  successful ;  when  he  threatened 
organized  religion,  he  met  a  force  against  which  all 
voices  crying  in  the  wilderness  have  generally  been 
unable  to  contend  with  entire  success.  Just  at  pres 
ent  he  was  beginning  to  get  here  and  there  a  hope 
ful  convert,  notably  such  men  as  May  and  Sewall  of 
the  devoted,  loyal  type. 

Without  a  press  to  push  the  evangel  of  any  re 
form,  the  liveliest  human  eloquence  is  a  voice  and 
nothing  more.  Garrison  moved  as  swiftly  as  he 
moved  earnestly,  when  he  succeeded  in  issuing  the 
first  number  of  the  Liberator  on  the  first  day  of  the 
year  1831,  for  it  was  only  in  August,  1830,  that  he 
had  put  out  his  prospectus  for  the  paper  which  he 
intended  to  edit  in  Washington.  His  earlier  motto 
was  "  My  country  is  the  world  ;  my  countrymen  are 
mankind, "  and  this  sentiment,  with  the  change  of 
"  My  "  to  "  Our"  was  adopted  as  the  legend  for  the 
Liberator.  There  was  no  "  promotion "  of  this 
scheme,  no  advance  heralding,  no  efforts  to  saddle 
the  burden  of  the  enterprise  on  the  public  by  is 
suance  of  bonus-carrying  stock.  It  was  a  simple, 
straightforward  newspaper  undertaking,  relying  on 
ability  and  earnestness  and  not  on  prizes  or  other 
modern  encouragements  to  buy  a  mediocre  thing. 
The  type  for  the  first  three  issues  was  borrowed,  and 


82  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKRISON 

then  some  second-hand  type  was  secured  from  a 
foundry.  A  hand-press  did  the  printing.  Garri 
son  was  the  editor,  but  his  publishing  partner  was 
Isaac  Knapp,  who  had  been  with  him  in  Kewbury- 
port.  The  office  was  also  their  home  and  here,  for 
a  year  and  a  half,  they  ate,  slept,  and  composed 
their  type.  It  was  Garrison's  good  fortune,  as  has 
before  been  noted,  to  be  able  to  set  up  his  editorials 
from  his  brain  into  his  composing  stick,  a  great 
saving  in  the  laboriousness  of  composition  and  a 
constant  check  on  verbosity.  With  the  aid  of  a 
colored  assistant,  who  later  graduated  from  Dart 
mouth  College, 'these  indefatigable  young  men,  by 
dint  of  working  fourteen  hours  a  day,  were  able 
each  week  to  set  up  and  distribute  as  many  as  100,- 
000  types,  run  their  press  and  mail  their  papers,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  labor  of  editing  the  "copy."  In 
the  first  issue  appeared  Garrison's  famous  manifesto  : 
"  I  am  in  earnest — I  will  not  equivocate — I  will  not 
excuse— I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch — and  I  will 
be  heard."  It  must  be  generously  admitted  that  he 
swerved  in  no  way  from  this  grim  program  until  the 
last  slave  in  the  nation  was  free.  He  recanted  his 
earlier  belief  in  gradual  abolition,  and  stood  for  the 
"immediate  enfranchisement  of  our  slave  popula 
tion."  With  politics  and  differing  religious  sects 
he  purposed  to  have  no  affiliations,  although  he 
welcomed  all  cooperation  with  the  cause  he  espoused. 
But  money  as  well  as  zeal  and  self-sacrifice  was 
needed,  and  this,  in  occasional  crises,  was  supplied 
by  Ellis  Gray  Loring  and  Samuel  E.  Sewall,  sturdy 
friends  of  the  man  and  the  cause. 


EDITOR  AKD  PAMPHLETEER  80 

From  the  opening  number  there  was  much  in  the 
Liberator  to  irritate  the  pro-slavery  element.  The 
famous  cut  of  a  slave  auction  conducted  within  sight 
of  the  nation's  capital,  which  surmounted  the  name 
of  the  paper,  was  galling,  and  often  elicited  a  ' '  deep 
and  bitter  curse  "  ;  even  Sewall  objected  to  it.  If  it 
was  "rude,"  as  the  Garrisons  admit,  it  certainly 
was  effective,  as  well  as  typical  of  an  era  when  it 
seemed  requisite,  in  any  graphic  presentation  of 
human  activity,  for  all  characters  portrayed  to  be 
crowned  with  a  tall  beaver  hat,  whether  the  wearer 
were  engaged  in  driving  an  engine,  hunting  a  fox, 
taking  an  oath  of  office,  witnessing  a  prize-fight, 
or,  as  in  the  present  instance,  buying  and  selling 
slaves. 

It  was  not  long  before  Garrison  had  reason  to  be 
lieve  that  he  was  getting  a  hearing  j  and  this  was 
what  he  desired.  There  is  no  evidence  to  show  that 
making  money  or  even  a  livelihood  out  of  his  paper 
had  entered  his  head.  From  here  and  there  sub 
scribers  drifted  in ;  even  the  generally  apathetic 
free  blacks  seemed  to  take  a  practical  interest  in  the 
new  venture.  But  abuse,  loud  and  increasing,  was 
the  real  sign  that  his  strident  cry  against  the  great 
est  barrier  to  human  development,  and  to  him,  the 
deepest  sin  of  all  the  black  sins  of  the  race,  was 
heard.  The  Abolitionists  early  saw  that  little  was 
to  be  gained  by  talking  solely  to  the  already  con 
verted.  They,  therefore,  did  not  seek  to  call  the 
righteous  to  repentance,  but  sedulously  and  skil 
fully  inflamed  their  opponents  and  gradually  per 
formed  the  far  harder  task  of  arousing  the  inatten- 


84  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISOH 

live  minds  of  the  morally  indifferent.  By  provok 
ing  replies  to  their  own  exhaustless  vocabulary  of 
abuse  and  -criticism,  ,they  began  to  put  the  pro- 
slavery  side  on  the  defensive.  Now  human  nature 
will  long  tolerate  a  slumbering  evil,  but  when  the 
monster  rears  its  head  and  begins  to  argue  its  case, 
then  moral  torpidity,  even  among  the  complacently 
respectable,  disappears  and  healthier  conditions 
prevail.  In  this  sort  of  warfare,  Garrison  was  a 
sure  strategist.  He  had  a  power  to  irritate  not  ex 
celled  even  by  Wendell  Phillips,  who  is  to  appear 
somewhat  later.  To  a  South  Carolina  editor,  who 
calls  him  an  u  apostate  Yankee7'  and  promises  to 
bring  his  "  bundle  of  sedition"  under  the  ban  of  law, 
should  he  show  himself  within  that  state,  Garrison 
gives  assurance  that  he  intends  as  soon  as  possible 
to  move  the  Liberator  to  some  slave  state  where  he 
"  can  meet  the  enemy  on  his  own  ground."  Doubt 
less  he  meant  this,  but  it  was  before  he  felt  that  dis 
quieting  rope  about  his  body,  placed  there  only  a 
few  months  later  by  a  fairly  respectable  Boston 
mob.  Perhaps  he  then  first  realized  what  his  fate 
would  surely  have  been,  had  he  carried  out  his 
threat.  When  one  reads  the  scorching  denuncia 
tions  of  this  enthusiast,  this  absolutist  in  the  realm 
of  individual  morals,  it  is  hard  to  accept  the  fact 
that  Garrison  hated  the  sin  and  not  the  sinner,  but 
unless  this  fact  is  implicitly  taken  for  granted,  his 
character  is  sure  to  be  misunderstood.  We  must 
believe  his  own  words  that  he  would  not  "harm  a 
hair  of  their  [the  slaveholders']  heads,  nor  injure 
them  in  their  lawful  property."  He  was  as  im- 


EDITOR  AND  PAMPHLETEEK  85 

partial  in  this  matter  as  any  judge  on  the  bench 
sentencing  a  criminal  not  because  he  is  a  wretch, 
but  because  he  has  committed  a  crime. 

Although  there  was  not  a  single  subscriber  to  the 
Liberator,  "  white  or  black,  south  of  the  Potomac," 
Gales  and  Seatou,  who  had  refused  the  columns  of 
the  National  Intelligencer  to  a  brother  editor  to  de 
fend  himself,  permitted  a  correspondent  to  suggest 
in  this  paper  that  the  people  of  the  South  *  i  offer  an 
adequate  reward  to  any  person  who  will  deliver  him 
[Garrison]  dead  or  alive  into  the  hands  of  the  au 
thorities  of  any  state  south  of  the  Potomac"  ;  the 
proposal,  however,  seemed  to  these  editors  "  inex 
pedient  to  act  upon."  In  various  Southern  places 
measures  were  taken  to  prevent  the  circulation 
or  possession  of  copies  of  the  Liberator  or  of 
Walker's  "  Appeal" — a  work  which  Garrison  him 
self,  as  we  have  seen,  had  not  up  to  this  time  en 
dorsed. 

If  Garrison  felt  no  alarm  over  accumulated 
threats,  certainly  his  friends  did  not  fail  to  see  the 
possibility  of  bodily  harm  to  him,  and  Arthur  Tap- 
pan  went  so  far  as  to  send  him  a  letter  of  credit  for 
one  thousand  dollars  with  which  to  protect  himself, 
— whether  by  running  away,  or  by  employing  coun 
sel  in  case  of  a  suit,  the  generous  donor  does  not 
specify.  The  obvious  way  to  suppress  this  "  mad 
man"  was  to  reach  him  through  the  Massachusetts 
jurisdiction,  or  through  the  authority  vested  in  the 
mayor  of  Boston ;  but  this  official — then  Harrison 
Gray  Otis — was  able  only  to  assure  the  petitioners, 
and  in  particular  Senator  Eobert  Y.  Hayne,  of  the 


86  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

1  i  insignificant  countenance  and  support  which  the 
paper  derives  from  this  city. ' ' 

The  South  was  in  no  mood  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
conservatism,  such  as  Otis' s,  that  saw  no  real  dan 
ger  and  certainly  no  punishment  waiting  for  an  ed 
itor  who  had  not  put  himself  outside  the  pale  of  es 
tablished  law.  If  there  were  no  law  to  catch  him 
in  Massachusetts,  it  was  possible  to  concoct  one 
elsewhere.  The  governor  of  Georgia,  by  the  un- 
militant  name  of  Lunipkiu,  approved  a  bill  passed 
at  the  end  of  1831,  offering  a  reward  of  five  thou 
sand  dollars  to  any  person  or  persons  who  should 
cause  the  arrest  and  conviction  of  the  editor  of  the 
Liberator.  It  was  certainly  a  fat  and  tempting  sum, 
such  as  might  well  have  induced  a  modern  spadassin 
to  lure  Garrison  by  any  means  or  forcibly  abduct 
him  away  from  safety.  The  wonder  is  that  no  at 
tempt  was  made  to  seize  his  person. 

Garrison  thus  far  had  not  really  warmed  up  to 
the  occasion ;  he  had  renounced  colonization,  de 
nounced  gradual  emancipation,  and  begun  to  preach 
immediate  abolition,  but  the  seal  had  not  yet  been 
really  taken  from  the  vial  of  his  wrath.  The  Nat 
Turner  insurrection  of  slaves  near  Southampton, 
Va.,  on  August  22,  1831,  and  the  terrible  punish 
ments  inflicted  on  the  participants  in  that  short 
lived  menace  to  the  South' s  "  peculiar  institution," 
gave  him  an  opportunity  to  send  forth  a  blast  of 
denunciation.  He  laid  the  blame  for  this  uprising 
at  the  door  of  slavery,  and  disavowed  all  responsi 
bility  for  exciting  the  passions  of  the  insurrection 
ists.  With  a  slip  of  logic  unusual  for  him,  he  held 


EDITOB,  AND  PAMPHLETEER  87 

that  Turner  probably  never  had  seen  a  copy  of  the 
Liberator,  yet  took  comfort  to  himself  that  he  "had 
preached  to  the  slaves  the  pacific  precepts  of  Jesus 
Christ. "  Preaching,  without  hearers  or  readers,  is 
not  likely  to  be  effectual. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  here  that  whereas  the  "  in 
famous  "  Garrison,  as  he  had  now  become,  never 
sanctioned  or  said  anything  directly  to  encourage 
an  uprising  of  slaves  against  their  "masters," 
Theodore  D wight,  a  Connecticut  lawyer,  had  said 
as  early  as  1794  that  "the  same  law,  which  justifies 
the  enormities  committed  by  civilized  nations 
when  engaged  in  war,  will  justify  slaves  for  every 
necessary  act  of  defense  against  the  wicked  and  un 
provoked  outrages  committed  against  their  peace, 
freedom  and  existence." 

The  immediate  effect,  both  in  the  North  and  the 
South,  of  this  forceful  agitation  was  to  make  the 
negro's  lot  still  harder.  What  for  a  long  time  had 
been  social  underrating,  now  became  distinct  op 
pression.  The  "nigger"  was  the  casus  belli;  his 
presence  in  churches,  schools,  and  in  all  public 
relations  was  a  continual  reminder  that,  had  his 
skin  not  been  so  black,  Garrison's  talk  had  not 
been  so  disturbing.  This  increasing  ferment  of 
caste  seems  now  most  explicable,  and  incidental  to 
conditions  which  precede  a  change  of  social  feeling 
from  a  lower  to  a  higher  plane.  It  is,  however,  sur 
prising  to  recall  that,  coincidental  with  the  state 
of  mind  following  the  Turner  rebellion,  the  General 
Assembly  of  Virginia  listened  with  calmness  and 
reason  to  several  attempts  to  bring  out  in  speeches 


88  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

before  that  body  the  seriousness  and  importance 
of  dealing  with  the  subject  of  slavery.  Nothing 
came  of  these  rational  efforts,  but  they  were  char 
acteristic  of  the  Virginia  attitude — the  recognition 
by  some  of  her  legislators  of  her  occupancy  of  the 
middle  ground  between  the  extreme  South  and  the 
extreme  North.  It  was  her  aforetime  Federalism 
come  back  to  life,  though  only  for  a  while.  It  was 
her  ancient  sanity  and  ability  once  more,  though 
ineffectually,  finding  expression. 

In  the  first  year  of  his  editorship  no  thought  ap 
pears  to  havre  disturbed  Garrison  as  to  the  finality 
of  law  as  a  refuge  for  the  oppressed.  He  urges 
upon  his  colored  friends,  now  beginning  to  rally 
about  his  standard  and  to  read  his  utterances,  to 
abide  by  the  tabernacles  of  justice  and  to  appeal  to 
established  means  for  redress.  Looking  forward 
two  decades  to  his  violent  denunciations  of  the 
Constitution,  it  seems  hardly  possible  that  there 
ever  could  have  been  a  William  Lloyd  Garrison 
who  wrote  :  "  Thanks  be  to  God  that  we  have  such 
a  Constitution  !  Without  it,  the  liberty  of  every 
man — white  as  well  as  colored — would  be  in 
jeopardy.  There  it  stands,  firm  as  the  rock  of 
Gibraltar,  a  high  refuge  from  oppression."  He 
was  young,  he  still  retained  faith  in  most  of  the 
fixities  of  civilization  and  had  yet  to  learn,  if  he 
ever  did  learn,  that  the  basis  of  all  democratic 
government  is  compromise.  Therefore  he  still  had 
reason  to  hope  that  honest  appeals  to  the  human 
heart  and  conscience  would  rouse  men  from  their 
long  sleep  of  acquiescence  in  national  wrong-doing ; 


EDiTOK  AND  PAMPHLETEEB  89 

this  confidence  lent  courage  to  his  pen.  The  great 
results  for  which  he  strove  were  at  last  reached  by 
means  far  different  from  those  he  taught,  but  he 
seems  never  to  have  lost  faith  in  argument,  backed 
by  a  relentless  logic  peculiarly  his  own.  What  he 
really  did  accomplish  was  largely  owing  to  this 
perfect  trust  in  his  own  methods,  his  own  weapons 
of  offense.  It  is  fortunate  that  he  lacked  the 
paralyzing  faculty  of  self -analysis ;  there  was  ever 
before  him  an  open  field  of  battle  and  only  one 
right  side.  No  devil's  advocate  tempted  him  to 
listen  to  the  merits  of  the  cause  of  such  a  foe  as 
slavery.  "  I  am  determined,"  he  said  at  about  this 
time,  "to  give  slaveholders  and  their  apologists  as 
much  uneasiness  as  possible. " 

If  Garrison's  cause  was  beginning  to  quicken  in 
the  loins  of  time,  that  of  African  colonization  was 
by  no  means  dead.  Strongly  moved  by  the  resent 
ment  shown  at  New  Haven  toward  a  plan  forming, 
under  stimulation,  in  part,  of  Arthur  Tappan,  for  a 
sort  of  industrial  college  for  colored  students  in  that 
academic  place,  then  much  frequented  by  Southern 
ers  and  Cubans ;  and  still  further  exasperated  by 
sentiments  in  Massachusetts  favorable  to  the 
Colonization  Society,  he  began  to  open  a  lively  fiiv 
against  its  principles,  and  to  lay  the  foundations  of 
his  "  Thoughts  on  Colonization,"  a  polemic  destined 
to  be  the  most  coherent  and  definite,  and  perhaps 
the  most  effective  of  all  his  publications. 

In  these  first  issues  of  the  Liberator  he  also 
assailed  free-masonry,  capital  punishment,  im 
prisonment  for  debt,  the  manufacture  and  sale  of 


90  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

liquors,  and  the  use  of  tobacco,  and  advocated  the 
doctrines  of  peace,  as  well  as  the  cause  of  the 
Cherokee  ludians  in  their  fruitless  contest  with  the 
state  of  Georgia.  Had  there  been  other  evils  to 
attack,  other  good  causes  to  espouse,  the  editor  of 
this  most  catholic  of  sheets  would  have  straddled  no 
line  between  the  wrong  and  right  sides.  If  he  was 
a  fanatic,  the  field  he  occupied  was  not  narrow, 
whatever  may  have  been  his  judgments.  It  is 
absurd  to  modern  ways  of  thinking  to  cherish  as 
strong  feelings  about  the  use  of  tobacco  as  about 
the  question  of  capital  punishment ;  but  this  man, 
possibly  in  this  respect  a  reflection  of  his  times,  did 
not  deal  in  relative  ethical  values — he  was  an  ex 
tremist  in  everything.  The  measure  of  his  preju 
dices  was  the  measure  of  the  immense  evils  he 
assailed — they  were  concrete  facts,  and  not  wind 
mills  in  the  imaginary  form  of  giants,  nor  was  he  a 
soft-hearted,  crack-pated  ironic  Quixote.  He  was 
eminently  a  practical  man  in  method,  though  an 
enthusiast  in  thought  and  emotion.  Eeputable  and 
sane  men  and  women — all  idealists,  and  of  various 
walks  in  life — were,  however,  beginning  to  listen  to 
him  and  read  him. 

Infuriated  by  his  words,  hurled  with  the  pre 
cision,  and  it  must  be  added,  the  deliberate  desire 
to  madden  with  which  the  banderillero  throws  his 
darts  at  the  tortured  bull,  the  South  had  begun  to 
show  a  real  frenzy  which  troubled  him  u  less  than 
the  wind.77  At  about  this  time,  according  to  a 
remarkable  anecdote  given  in  the  Life,  there  visited 
Garrison  a  man  far  different  from  the  hot-headed 


EDITOR  AND  PAMPHLETEER  91 

Southerner — one  accustomed  to  persuade  and  seduce 
by  the  very  force  and  charm  of  his  wonderful  per 
sonality.  But  even  Aaron  Burr,  then  an  old  man, 
could  not  convince  the  implacable  Garrison  that 
liis  cause  was  hopeless  and  that  his  struggles  were 
mere  folly.  Like  some  malign  apparition  he  ap 
peared  in  Boston  to  dissuade  the  young  editor  from 
going  on  with  his  paper,  and  utterly  failing  in  his 
mission,  he  vanished,  self-poised  and  mysterious  as 
he  ever  was  through  life. 

So  passed  this  year,  the  most  important  of  Garri 
son's  career  thus  far.  A  journal  of  influence  had 
been  established  which  was  to  maintain  its  exist 
ence,  not,  however,  without  hard  periods,  for  thirty- 
five  years,  and  then  to  stop  by  the  wise  decision  of 
its  editor  and  not  from  necessity.  Real  friends 
had  also  been  made, — friends  who  did  not  hesitate 
to  speak  their  own  minds  and  follow  their  own 
courses,  not  disciples  bound  to  adulation.  Garrison 
was  now  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  phase  of  his 
career,  which  was  to  bring  him  into  wider  and 
larger  relations  with  the  whole  country  and  make 
him  something  more  than  a  crier  of  a  new  Boston 
notion.  Already  in  May  of  this  year  (1831)  he  had 
sounded  a  note  for  the  formation  of  a  national  anti- 
slavery  society;  "such  a  society, "  he  says,  "  must 
be  organized  forthwith."  In  June  there  assembled 
the  first  annual  convention  of  the  colored  people 
of  the  United  States,  but  its  scope  fell  far  short  of 
what  was  needed. 

Oliver  Johnson  and  the  Garrisons  have  graphic 
ally  described  the  formation  of  the  New  England 


92  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISON 

Anti-Slavery  Society,  the  preliminary  meeting  of 
which  was  held  oil  November  13,  1831,  in  Samuel  E. 
Se wall's  office  and  was  attended  by  fifteen  persons. 
On  January  1,  1832,  there  was  adopted,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  the  preamble,  a  constitution  drafted  by 
David  Lee  Child  (the  husband  of  Lydia  Maria 
Child),  Samuel  E.  Sewall,  William  Lloyd  Garrison, 
Ellis  Gray  Loring,  and  Oliver  Johnson.  The  follow 
ing  Friday,  in  the  midst  of  a  fierce  northeaster,  the 
adjourned  meeting  for  the  settlement  of  the  pre 
amble  was  held  in  a  room  beneath  the  African 
Baptist  Church  on  the  northern  side  of  Beacon  Hill. 
The  night  and  the  place,  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
negro  ghetto  of  Boston,  suggest  that  these  adventur 
ous  spirits  had  chosen  Darkest  Africa  as  the  spot 
whence  they  were  to  flash  the  first  formidable  and 
concentrated  light  on  what  seemed  to  them  the 
greatest  darkness,  because  spiritual,  of  the  country 
at  large.  The  preamble  was  passed  and  signed  by 
twelve  who  were  present,  all  orthodox  in  their  re 
ligious  profession,  among  them  Arnold  Buftum,  the 
devoted  New  Bedford  Quaker,  and  a  hatter  by 
trade.  Child,  Loring  and  Sewall — the  only  law 
yers  in  the  meeting  and  all  of  them  Unitarians — did 
not  sign,  but  soon  after  came  into  line  with  the 
other  members  of  the  society.  Garrison  would  have 
liked  a  more  definite  pronunciamento,  but  had  to 
be  content  with  a  declaration  of  sentiments,  the 
closing  part  of  which  was  as  follows  :  "  While  we 
advance  these  opinions  as  the  principles  on  which 
we  intend  to  act,  we  declare  we  will  not  operate  on 
the  existing  relations  of  society  by  other  than 


EDITOR  AND  PAMPHLETEER  93 

peaceful  and  lawful  means,  and  that  we  will  give 
no  countenance  to  violence  or  insurrection."  Gar 
rison's  remark  as  this  sturdy  little  band  once  more 
braved  the  fierce  wind  of  a  Boston  winter  night 
has  been  often  quoted  and  may  advisedly  be  re 
peated.  Although  it  lacks  the  nervous  force  of 
spontaneity,  it  is  characteristic  of  his  usual  gravity 
of  expression  and  fondness  for  prophetic  utterance  : 
"We  have  met  to-night  in  this  obscure  school- 
house  ;  our  numbers  are  few  and  our  influence  is 
limited  ;  but,  mark  my  prediction,  Faueuil  Hall 
shall  ere  long  echo  with  the  principles  we  have  set 
forth.  We  shall  shake  the  nation  by  their  mighty 
power."  :  It  was  a  true  forecast,  but  there  were 
other  forces  rising,  other  men  and  women  in  other 
places,  swiftly  marshaling  under  the  banners  of 
professedly  ireuic  measures,  to  hurry  on  a  move 
ment  to  which  there  could  be  but  one  issue — fratri 
cidal  strife.  The  war  between  the  states  was,  in  a 
sense,  already  begun  by  these  early  skirmishers  on 
the  borders  between  the  fixed  security  of  organized 
society  and  the  dark  retreats  of  incipient  rebellion. 
Garrison,  as  was  fitting,  became  corresponding 
secretary  of  the  new  society,  with  Buffum  as  presi 
dent  and  Joshua  Coffin  as  recording  secretary.  It 
was  the  first  definite  opposition  to  the  American 
Colonization  Society,  a  short-lived  auxiliary  of 
which  had  been  formed  in  Massachusetts  in  1831. 
About  twenty -five  per  cent,  of  the  seventy -two 
signers  of  the  constitution  were  colored.  The  main 
object  of  the  society  was  "to  effect  the  abolition  of 
lLife,  Vol.  I,  p.  280. 


94  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEEISON 

slavery  iu  the  United  States,"  arid  measures  were 
at  oiice  started  to  disseminate  its  purposes  by  means 
of  agents.  First  the  Liberator  and  then  the  Aboil- 
tionist,  a  paper  conducted  by  Alonzo  Lewis,  Joshua 
Coffin  and  Garrison,  were  the  official  organs.  Well 
on  in  the  year  1832  began  a  work  which  provided 
Garrison  for  a  time  with  the  semblance  of  a  liveli 
hood.  He  was  made  agent  of  the  society  for  the 
purpose  of  "  touring  "  various  parts  of  New  England 
to  spread  the  abolition  gospel,  at  a  salary  which 
amounted  to  a  trifle  over  a  dollar  a  day. 

Eadical  enough  by  this  time  on  most  questions, 
he  was  still  conservative  in  a  few.  As  he  traveled 
about  on  his  mission,  he  was  impressed,  as  men 
still  are,  with  the  favorable  results  of  that  artificial 
arrangement  known  as  the  protective  system,  which 
he  found  to  be  "  the  life-blood  of  the  nation."  In 
those  days  it  ran  somewhat  less  turbidly  than  at  a 
later  period,  and  such  excesses  as  it  held  within  itself 
as  a  system  were  not  discernible  to  the  young  reformer. 
This  was  one  of  his  conservatisms.  Ultimately  he  be 
came  a  free  trader  on  humanitarian  grounds.  Even 
to  the  end  of  his  life  he  remained  a  Eepublican  in 
politics,  although  the  revolt  against  this  party  had 
gained  much  strength  before  he  died.  A  curious 
preference  for  a  few  established  things  and  for  some? 
of  the  old  paths  marks  him  as  more  cautious  than 
his  extremist  contemporary,  Wendell  Phillips. 

In  the  year  1832,  Garrison  published  his  first 
really  important  writing,  Thoughts  on  African  Colo 
nization.  Pamphlet  though  it  was,  it  was  a  thorough 
piece  of  work,  deliberately  aimed  at  the  impair- 


EDITOR  AND  PAMPHLETEER  95 

ment  of  the  American  Colonization  Society.  He 
did  not  rely,  for  argument,  on  rhetoric  or  his  own 
heated  zeal,  but  on  a  careful  study  of  the  published 
utterances  and  records  of  this  society.  It  was  a  re 
markably  incisive  examination,  fully  equal  in  abil 
ity  and  grasp  to  what  might  have  been  expected 
from  a  far  more  learned  and  better  trained  man.  It 
would  be  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  there  were  at 
that  time  in  the  country  few  college-bred  men  who 
could  have  equaled  this  effort  in  acumen,  the  use 
of  facts,  or  the  assemblage  of  arguments.  Certainly 
no  adequate  answer  was  ever  made  to  this  danger 
ous  assault  on  the  Colonization  Society,  a  well  rec 
ognized  institution  in  American  life,  cherished  by 
the  benevolent  and  well- meaning,  because  such  a 
society  seemed  an  easy,  if  a  remote  and  partial,  so 
lution  of  an  evil  which  was  beginning  to  make  the 
comfortable  somewhat  uneasy,  and  the  morally  half- 
asleep  rub  their  eyes.  Into  the  merits  and  demerits 
of  colonization,  and  of  the  society,  which  still  has  a 
real  if  not  vigorous  existence,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
enter  here.  So  great  an  authority  as  Daniel  Web-' 
ster  said  in  1822,  in  answer  to  Judge  Story's  advo 
cacy  of  colonization,  that  ' '  it  was  a  scheme  of  slave 
holders  to  get  rid  of  free  negroes/' !  That  was  not 
the  whole  story  then  or  now,  but  neither  the  scheme 
nor  the  organization  was  satisfactory  to  Garrison, 
and  after  his  wont  he  proceeded  to  assail  them  as 
inimical  to  a  higher  and  better  plan.  His  great  ob 
jection  to  the  society  was  that  it  did  not  attack  sla 
very  as  a  personal  sin,  but  only  as  a  harmful  and 

1  Sears,  Wendell  Phillips,  p.  32. 


96  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

regrettable  institution,  and  that  it  was  disposed  to 
let  both  well  enough  and  the  wholly  bad  alone — the 
wholly  bad  being  the  recognition  of  slaves  as  prop 
erty.  With  such  laissez-faire  methods  he  could 
have  nothing  to  do,  although  it  is  noticeable  that 
even  he  did  not  propose  to  extend  the  suffrage  or 
the  burden  of  office-holding  immediately  to  those 
who  might  be  released  from  bondage.  Above  all 
things,  he  announced  that  the  means  taken  to  in 
sure  freedom  should  be  moral,  by  which  he  meant 
pacific.  From  this  position  he  really  never  wavered. 
Against  this  humble  David,  armed  with  such  peb 
bles  as  the  truth  furnished  him,  was  arrayed  the 
most  reputable  portion  of  American  society — divines, 
educators,  publicists,  men  of  established  position  and 
accustomed  to  respect.  Among  these  men  was  Ger- 
rit  Smith,  soon  to  feel  the  smiting  fire  of  this  ar 
raignment  of  his  honest  convictions. 

The  pamphlet  was  deadly  and  it  did  its  work, 
just  how  or  in  what  extent  of  time  it  is  not  possible 
to  determine.  As  a  wound  will  fester  more  quickly 
in  unclean  than  in  clean  flesh,  so  did  this  now  well- 
nigh  unreadable  pamphlet  produce  septic  condi 
tions  in  a  society  about  which  there  was  already 
much  uneasiness.  Elizur  Wright,  Jr.,  enumerates1 
a  few  of  the  men  who  came  away  from  the  Coloniza 
tion  Society  at  about  this  time.  Their  names, 
worthy  of  mention  here,  for  they  were  important  in 
those  days  and  later,  are  as  follows  :  Arthur  and 
Lewis  Tappan,  A  Ivan  Stewart,  Gerrit  Smith,  Gen 
eral  Samuel  Fessenden,  Theodore  D.  Weld,  K.  P. 

1  Life,  Vol.  I,  p.  299. 


EDITOB  AND  PAMPHLETEEB  97 

Bogers,  Charles  B.  Storrs,  President  of  Western 
Reserve  College  ;  Beriah  Green,  William  Goodell, 
Joshua  Leavitt,  and  Anios  A.  Phelps.  Even  such 
men  as  Stephen  Longfellow,  the  poet's  father,  and 
Simon  Greeuleaf,  the  jurist,  were  favorably  moved 
by  the  moral  weight  of  Garrison's  writing. 

In  spite  of  the  enlargement  of  the  Liberator  dur 
ing  the  year,  there  is  evidence  late  in  1832,  that  the 
paper  was  in  difficulty,  on  account  of  "  the  em 
barrassment  into  which  the  publication  of  our 
Thoughts  has  unavoidably  plunged  us"  ;  and  this, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  as  stated  in  the  Life1 
that  it  was  "  owing  exclusively  to  the  liberality  of 
Isaac  Winslow,  of  Portland,"  that  Mr.  Garrison 
was  able  to  publish  his  pamphlet.  Notwithstand 
ing  his  success  as  a  pamphleteer,  therefore,  the  year 
which  had  thus  far  marked  the  farthest  advance 
seems  to  have  closed  rather  darkly  for  the  editor. 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  300  n. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    MOVEMENT   MADE  NATIONAL 

BY  the  time  he  was  twenty-five  years  old,  Garri 
son  had  managed  to  get  himself  into  jail,  had  been 
connected  with  several  newspapers  and  had  at  last 
established  one  that  was  to  endure  thirty-live  years  ; 
he  had  written  a  most  important  and  influential 
pamphlet,  had  made  many  telling  addresses,  and 
had  become  mainly  responsible  for  the  formation  of 
an  anti-slavery  society  out  of  which  were  to  grow 
yet  larger  things.  The  leaven  he  used  was  begin 
ning  to  work,  and  in  the  end  it  leavened  the  whole 
mass — not,  however,  without  admixture  with  other 
quickening  elements,  the  use  of  which  he  disdained. 
Among  these  were  the  ballot,  political  machinery, 
the  social  power  of  the  church,  and  the  inherent  re 
spect  of  American  citizens  for  a  Constitution  of 
their  own  making.  His  greatest  contribution  to  the 
national  life  was  his  discovery,  as  we  may  properly 
call  it,  of  the  tremendous  force  of  unremitting  per 
sonal  agitation.  It  would  be  fair  to  call  him  the 
first  American  agitator  since  the  time  immediately 
preceding  the  Eevolution,  when  the  James  Otises 
and  the  Samuel  Adamses  stopped  discussing  only  be 
cause  argument  had  given  way  to  fighting.  But  up 
to  the  year  1833,  Garrison's  efforts  were  fermenta 
tive  in  character,  and  did  not  partake  of  the  nature 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL     99 

of  explosives.  To  be  sure,  he  had  sorely  irritated 
the  South,  as  even  the  least  salt  will  irritate  an  ill 
condition  of  the  flesh,  and  he  was  beginning  to  dis 
please  a  considerable  number  of  highly  respectable 
persons  in  the  North,  who  were  coming  to  regard 
him  as  a  nuisance  if  not  already  a  menace.  Still 
his  words  as  yet  were  only  words,  however  sharp - 
tipped  with  irritants  for  sluggish  moral  circulation  ; 
acts  traceable  to  these  exacerbating  speeches  and 
editorials  there  were  none  as  yet  of  real  significance. 
But  in  this  year  1833  arose  a  tempest  consider 
ably  larger  than  that  teapot  of  a  Connecticut  village 
in  which  it  was  brewed.  The  story  must  be  briefly 
told,  and  told  only  because  it  was  Garrison's  advice 
which  really  made  the  whole  affair  possible.  Great 
movements — and  anti-slavery  was  a  great  movement 
— do  not  originate  under  one  hat,  and  it  is  altogether 
possible  that  Miss  Prudence  Crandall,  principal  of 
a  "female"  boarding-school  in  Canterbury,  Conn., 
would  have  been  aroused  by  the  iniquities  of  human 
slavery,  had  no  such  person  as  William  Lloyd  Gar 
rison  ever  existed.  But  the  plain  truth  is  that, 
while  comfortably  and  profitably  conducting  her 
girls'  school,  she  was  led  to  read  the  Liberator, 
copies  of  which  were  loaned  to  her  by  a  colored 
girl,  who  " helped"  in  Miss  Crandall's  home. 
Brought  up  in  the  Society  of  Friends,  she  had  early 
learned  that  slavery  was  an  evil  thing,  and  her 
sympathies  for  a  debased  race  were  easily  aroused 
by  the  exciting  pages  of  Garrison's  paper.  She 
took  into  her  school  a  young  colored  woman,  a 
friend  of  the  domestic  before  mentioned,  and  from 


100          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKRDSOff 

tliat  moment  there  was  no  peace  for  Miss  Crandall 
or  her  prosperous  school.  Before  she  had  done 
with  Canterbury,  the  lady  had  been  insulted  in 
about  every  conceivable  way,  short  of  violence  to 
her  person.  She  was  jailed,  medical  attendance  was 
denied  her,  ordure  was  thrown  into  her  well  and  her 
house  was  assaulted  and  "finally  set  on  fire,"  l — all 
because  she  decided,  on  account  of  the  hubbub  over 
the  entrance  of  the  colored  girl  into  the  school,  to 
change  her  establishment  into  a  high  school  for 
"  young  colored  ladies  and  misses."  The  battle  of 
the  whole  town  against  one  woman — and  incidentally 
against  her  inflexible  principles — was  waged  for  two 
years,  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  the  usual  thing 
happened  :  the  idealist  was  beaten  ;  only  her  ulti 
mately  successful  ideals  remained.  She  was  to  fall 
a  victim  to  the  mass  play  of  cowardice — a  boycott. 

In  the  October  following  his  return  from  Europe 
in  1833,  Garrison  went  to  see  Miss  Crandall  and  her 
curious  collection  of  relics  of  the  warfare, — a  war 
fare  as  ridiculous  as  it  was  offensive,  against  a  woman 
in  the  exercise  of  her  personal  rights  under  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  country  for  which  these  brave  war 
riors  professed  to  care  so  much.  Going  on  to 
Brooklyn,  Conn.,  he  was  served  at  the  house  of 
George  Benson,  his  future  father-in-law,  with  five 
indictments  for  libel  against  as  many  of  the  leading 
persecutors  of  Miss  CrandalPs  school.  These  suits 
were  all  withdrawn  somewhat  over  a  year  later,  al 
though  Garrison  had  requested  to  have  them  con 
tinued  during  the  year,  and  in  the  Liberator  had 
1  Life,  Vol.  I,  p.  321. 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE 

abated  none  of  his  violent  expressions  against  the 
plaintiffs,  the  chief  offender  of  whom  was  one 
Andrew  T.  Judson.  Garrison  had  practically  no 
part  to  wage  in  this  strange  outbreak  in  an  other 
wise  decent  New  England  community,  which  for  a 
time  laid  aside  its  garments  of  respectability  and  re 
vealed  the  inextinguishable,  naked  savage  beneath. 
But  the  significant  thing  is  that  it  was  he  whom  Miss 
Craudall  sought  for  advice  about  changing  (literally) 
the  complexion  of  her  school.  What  that  advice  was 
it  is  easy  to  guess  ;  it  is  also  certain  that  she  followed 
Garrison's  counsel  and  that  she  advertised  her  new 
venture  in  the  Liberator.1  As  long  as  Garrison  in 
furiated  a  far-distant  portion  of  the  country  by  his 
words,  or  empurpled  the  visages  of  reputable  Bos 
ton  ians  by  his  harangues,  he  was  harmless  enough 
— as  people  may  have  thought ;  but  when  his  advice, 
directly  given  and  quickly  acted  upon,  threw  a 
peaceable  Northern  village  into  a  state  of  anarchy, 
it  is  quite  plain — plainer  than  could  have  appeared 
at  the  time — that  Garrison  was  something  more  than 
a  loud  talker  and  an  indiscreet  writer.  He  was  get 
ting  to  be  dynamic — soon  he  was  accounted  to  be  suf 
ficiently  dangerous  to  excite  anarchic  conditions 
nearer  home  than  Canterbury,  Conn.  But  he  was  to 
see  a  little  of  the  world  and  to  spread  his  gospel  far 
afield  before  this  happened. 

Notwithstanding  the  failure  to  get  a  footing  in 

New  Haven  for  the  industrial  college  for  students  of 

color,  talk  about  a  manual  labor  school  was  still 

going  on  in  Philadelphia  and  Boston.     It  was  felt 

1  See  issue  for  March  2,  1833- 


102          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

that  an  active  effort  to  raise  money  abroad,  and  par 
ticularly  in  Great  Britain,  was  desirable,  and  to  this 
end,  early  in  the  year  1833,  it  was  voted  by  the  New 
England  Society  to  send  Garrison  to  England  as 
an  agent  to  collect  funds,  as  soon  as  means  could 
be  provided  for  the  purpose.  Not  only  was  he  to 
promote  the  interests  of  the  Manual  Labor  School 
for  Colored  Youth,  but  if  possible,  he  was  to  head 
off  Elliott  Cresson,  delegated  agent  of  the  American 
Colonization  Society,  whose  propaganda  were  making 
a  rapid  advance  not  only  among  English  colouiza- 
tionists,  but  also  among  those  in  favor,  theoretically 
at  least,  of  the  abolition  of  slavery.  Cresson  had 
approached  William  Wilberforce,  father  of  the 
movement  for  the  emancipation  of  the  British  West 
Indian  slaves  with  indifferent  success,  but  had 
managed  to  extract  from  Thomas  Clarkson  a  state 
ment  favoring  the  emancipation  of  all  slaves  in  the 
United  States,  and  the  sending  of  them  to  Africa  as 
a  means  of  stopping  the  slave-trade  and  advancing 
civilization  in  that  country.  This  Clarkson  mani 
festo  Cressou  seems  to  have  so  garbled  that,  as  it 
was  sent  forth  in  print,  it  favored  the  promotion  of 
11  voluntary  emigration  to  Africa  of  the  colored 
population  of  the  United  States,"  a  great  distinc 
tion  and  a  great  difference.  Garrison's  hands  were 
now  seldom  empty  of  wrathful  vials  which  he  might 
pour  on  the  enemies  of  his  cause — enemies  in  the 
personal  sense  he  disclaimed  ever  having  had — but 
for  the  head  of  Elliott  Cresson,  no  vial  seemed  too 
offensive.  Whether  Cresson  was  the  hypocritical 
and  unscrupulous  person  he  was  said  to  be  by  Gar- 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL    103 

rison,  and  believed  to  be  by  the  latter7  s  filial  biog- 
graphers,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  But  he  was  mak 
ing  headway  in  England  even  against  James  Cropper 
and  Charles  Stuart,  who  were  apparently  the  most 
forceful  English  advocates  of  the  abolition  cause ; 
and  he  was  representative  of  principles  which  Gar 
rison  had  come  within  the  past  two  or  three  years 
to  abhor.  Given  a  born  fighter,  a  definite  oppo 
nent,  and  an  objective  point  toward  which  both  were 
pressing  hard,  and  we  need  not  inquire  too  minutely 
into  the  refinements  of  such  a  controversy.  The 
rules  of  the  ring  are  not  always  observed  when 
tongues,  not  fists,  are  the  weapons.  It  is  not  neces 
sary  to  believe  that  Cresson  was  an  infamous  char 
acter  to  understand  why  he  was  assailed  by  Garrison 
—he  stood  squarely  in  the  path  of  a  man  who  be 
lieved  that  himself  and  all  his  works  were  impeccably 
on  the  side  of  right. 

Money  came  in  from  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
Boston,  Providence  and  other  places  until  over  six 
hundred  dollars  were  subscribed  for  the  trip.  It 
should  be  remembered  that  at,  this  period  the  free 
colored  people  were  doing  their  share  not  only  in 
showing  enthusiasm  for  the  cause  of  their  race,  but 
in  aiding  this  cause  by  gifts  of  money  and  by  active 
work.  The  impression  is  still  strong  that  the  negro 
himself  has  been  comparatively  indifferent  to  the 
earlier  efforts  made  for  his  deliverance  from  the 
hardest  bondage  known  to  man.  That  he  was  for 
the  most  part  helpless  from  necessity  is  true,  but, 
at  the  time  of  which  we  are  writing,  it  is  probably 
also  true  that  the  number  of  morally  alert  colored 


104          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

or  partly  colored  persons  was  creditably  large.  The 
saving  renmaiit  in  any  age  prepared  to  suffer  per 
sonally  for  the  sake  of  an  impersonal  or  unprofitable 
cause  is  always  lamentably  small,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  negro,  at  the  dawn  of  his 
deliverance  in  the  thirties,  was  sleeping  more 
soundly  at  his  post  than  is  the  wont  of  common 
men  everywhere  and  at  all  times. 

Garrison  left  the  Liberator  to  the  editorial  charge 
of  Oliver  Johnson,  one  of  the  most  uncompromising 
of  the  early  Abolitionists,  who  survived  his  chief 
and  wrote  a  biography  of  him  necessary  to  be  read 
by  all  who  would  understand  the  inner  life  of  this 
movement.  It  was  natural  to  one  of  Garrison's 
temperament  that  he  should  make  his  departure  an 
occasion  for  speaking  his  mind  fully  on  the  subject 
closest  to  his  heart.  To  a  gathering  of  colored 
people  in  the  little  church  underneath  which  \viis 
born  the  New  England  Society,  he  said,  in  dwelling 
on  the  power  of  slavery  as  a  system:  "  I  will  not 
waste  niy  strength  in  foolishly  endeavoring  to  beat 
down  the  great  Bastille  with  a  feather.  ...  I 
am  for  digging  under  the  foundations,  and  spring 
ing  a  mine  that  shall  not  leave  one  stone  upon 
another.77  If  his  methods  were  to  be  pacific  and 
non-resistant,  certainly  he  chose  his  similes  and 
metaphors  from  the  enginery  of  actual  war.  It  is  a 
mystery  how  he  could  have  believed  that  human 
nature,  always  impressionable,  always  yielding  at 
its  weakest  point,  could  interpret  his  ferocious 
eloquence  in  terms  of  an  un warlike  policy. 

Late  in  April  lie  addressed  an  audience  in  Phila- 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL    105 

delphia,  but  had  occasion  to  note  that  "  the  colored 
Philadelphiaus,  as  a  body,  do  not  evince  that  in 
terest  and  warmth  of  attachment  which  characterize 
my  Boston  friends — nor  is  it  to  be  expected,  as  I 
have  associated  with  scarce  a  dozen  of  their  num 
ber."  Toward  the  end  of  the  month  Garrison  and 
his  friends  evidently  believed  that  he  was  "  watched 
and  hunted ' '  with  a  view  to  getting  bodily  posses 
sion  of  him  by  legal  writs,  and  spiriting  him  away 
to  Georgia  or  elsewhere  in  the  South.  No  evidence 
is  offered  to  show  that  these  suspicions  had  any 
basis  of  fact  to  sustain  them,  but,  in  order  to  be 
sure,  he  was  kept  " under  lock  and  key"  in  an 
upper  room  of  the  house  of  a  friend  of  Arthur 
Tappan,  until  he  sailed  from  New  York  on  May  2, 
1833.  He  went  forth  to  raise  fifty  thousand  dollars 
for  the  manual  school,  to  circumvent  the  activities 
of  the  agent  Cresson,  and,  hardest  of  all,  to  face 
social  conditions  of  which  he  knew  absolutely 
nothing  except  that,  judged  by  the  world's  stand 
ards,  they  were  very  different  from  those  from 
which  he  took  his  being  and  in  which  he  still 
Amoved.  Up  to  that  time,  traveled  Americans — if 
we  except  Benjamin  Franklin,  whose  circumstances 
so  much  resemble  those  of  Garrison — were  for  the 
most  part  sons  of  gentlemen,  university-bred,  and 
armed  with  helpful  credentials  and  ample  letters 
of  credit.  Garrison  was  singularly  devoid  of  the 
equipment  of  an  over-sea  conqueror  in  the  social  or 
the  political  arena. 

During  his  brief  and  well-spent  absence,  he  was  a 
participant  as  well  as  a  spectator  in  important  hap- 


106          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABEISOK 

penings.  He  was  able  to  add  to  his  list  of  helpful 
friends  the  names  of  James  Cropper,  Thomas  Powell 
Buxtou,  Zachary  Macaulay,  father  of  a  yet  greater 
son ;  Samuel  Gurney,  Charles  Stuart,  the  Bev. 
Thomas  Price,  Daniel  O' Council,  and  George 
Thompson.  In  June  he  was  received  by  William 
Wilberforce,  then  within  a  few  weeks  of  his  death, 
which  took  place  three  days  after  the  second  read 
ing  of  the  House  of  Commons  Bill  emancipating  the 
West  Indian  slaves.  In  two  interviews  with  the 
father  of  British  emancipation,  Garrison  accom 
plished  all  that  was  necessary  to  turn  the  tide 
against  Cressou.  A  protest  signed  by  Wilberforce 
within  about  ten  days  of  his  death,  and  by  eleven 
other  leading  Abolitionists,  called  off  further  aid 
and  comfort  on  British  soil  to  the  American  Col 
onization  Society,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  Garrison's  presence  in  England  had  much  to 
do  with  this  result.  In  an  unusually  sour  diatribe 
against  Garrison  and  his  biographers,  Leonard 
Woolsey  Bacon,  whose  hostility  has  been  mentioned 
elsewhere,  makes  light  of  the  American  agitator's 
approbation  of  Buxtou,  who  was  Wilberforce' s  suc 
cessor  in  Parliament.  Buxton  was  a  brewer,  and 
Garrison  had  already  expressed  himself  fully  in  re 
gard  to  all  who  manufactured  and  sold  what  he 
believed  to  be  liquid  damnation,  even  though  it  was 
as  innocent  a  beverage  as  the  honest  ale  brewed  by 
Truman,  Hanbury,  Buxton  and  Company.  Mr. 
Bacon  found  evidence  of  hypocrisy  in  Garrison's 
thus  meeting  in  friendly  spirit  with  an  English 
gentleman  engaged  in  a  warfare  against  a  common 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL    107 

foe.  Many  of  the  charges  against  Garrison  can  be 
shown  to  be  as  senseless  as  this — a  large  part  of 
them  unimportant  even  when  true.  That  Garrison 
cannot  be  accused  of  a  snobbish  desire  to  stand  well 
with  important  men  in  England  is  amply  proved  by 
his  twice  subjecting  himself,  for  the  sake  of  his 
cause,  to  a  snub  from  a  royal  personage  whom  he 
unfortunately  addressed  as  u  His  Grace, "  the  Duke 
of  Sussex.  A  less  ingenuous  man  than  Garrison 
would  have  been  content  with  one  neglect  from  a 
royal  highness.  Possibly  the  duke  thought,  as 
Buxton  did,  before  he  saw  his  American  visitor, 
that  William  Lloyd  Garrison  was  a  black  man. 

It  soon  became  evident,  on  account  of  the 
agitation  of  West  Indian  affairs,  that  the  time  was 
not  ripe  to  seek  English  aid  for  the  manual 
labor  school.  But  Mr.  Cresson,  already  strong  in 
the  confidence  of  many  English  Quakers,  was  to  bo 
circumvented,  if  it  were  a  possible  thing.  He  was 
accordingly  invited  to  a  joint  debate  with  Garrison, 
but  found  a  way  to  decline  it.  Garrison  there 
fore  addressed  a  meeting  at  Price's  Wesleyan 
Chapel,  and  devoted  himself  to  criticizing  the 
policies  of  the  Colonization  Society.  Cresson  was 
present,  but  made  no  rejoinder,  and  failed  to  appear 
at  a  meeting  held  next  evening,  when  Cropper  was 
able  to  announce  Wilberforce's  regret  that  "he 
was  ever  led  to  say  anything  in  approbation  of  the 
Colonization  Society."  This  was  before  Garrison's 
meeting  with  Wilberforce,  and  his  chief  influence 
with  the  latter  was  in  connection  with  the  signing 
of  the  " Protest"  already  referred  to.  Later,  to 


108          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKBISON 

induce  Cresson  to  prove  his  various  assertions, 
Garrison  inserted  a  challenge,  for  which  he  paid 
more  than  thirty  dollars,  in  the  London  Times. 
After  he  had  made  many  new  friends,  and  given 
publicity  and  even  popularity  to  the  American 
anti-slavery  cause,  though  attacking  with  question 
able  discretion  the  shortcomings  of  his  native 
country,  he  found  reason  to  believe  that  African 
colonization  had  received  a  serious  setback  in 
England,  and  therefore  saw  no  occasion  for  longer 
remaining  away  from  his  chosen  work  at  home.  It 
was  his  good  fortune  to  have  Daniel  O' Council  give 
support,  with  all  that  great  Irishman's  eloquence 
and  generous  fervor,  to  his  own  claim  for  British 
sympathy.  It  was  also  his  privilege  to  walk  as 
a  mourner  in  the  procession  which  escorted  the 
remains  of  William  Wilberforce  to  their  resting- 
place  in  AVestminster  Abbey.  His  visit  had  been 
eventful  and  profitable,  and  it  was  a  good  time  for 
departure,  when  welcome  for  him  and  what  he 
stood  for  was  still  warm. 

This  first  journey  of  Garrison  to  England  lasted 
a  few  days  short  of  five  months ;  and  he  was  back 
in  New  York  in  season  to  attend,  on  October  2d, 
as  a  spectator,  a  meeting  called  to  form  the  New 
York  City  Anti- Slavery  Society.  Clinton  Hall 
was  closed  against  this  meeting,  and  it  was  held 
in  the  Eev.  Charles  G.  Finney's  chapel  in  Chatham 
Street,  just  long  enough  to  adopt  a  constitution 
before  the  incursion  of  a  mob  of  violent  sympa 
thizers  with  the  South,  who  had  auspiciously  held 
a  previous  meeting  in  Tammany  Hall.  When 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL    109 

Garrison  returned  to  Boston,  after  this  experience 
with  the  dangers  of  free  speech  in  New  York,  he 
found  that  news  of  his  strictures  on  American  insti 
tutions  had  preceded  his  arrival.  A  crowd,  bent 
on  mischief  and  incited  by  a  "  dodger  "  from  the 
North  End,  the  usual  seat  of  popular  inflammation 
in  Boston,  as  the  Bowery  was  later  in  New  York, 
gathered,  on  the  evening  of  October  7th,  in  front 
of  the  office  of  his  paper,  but  melted  away  without 
applyiDg  the  moral  therapeutics  dear  to  mobs. 
Feeling,  however,  that  some  explanation  of  his 
utterances  was  due  even  to  an  unreasonable  crowd, 
Garrison,  without  the  vestige  of  an  apologetic  line, 
showed  that,  while  he  loved  his  country  and  did 
not  fail  to  praise  it,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  brand  it 
"as  hypocritical  and  tyrannical  in  its  treatment 
of  the  people  of  color,  whether  bond  or  free."  l 
Later  he  printed  in  the  Liberator2  what  he  had 
really  said  in  Exeter  Hall,  reported  at  an  expense 
to  him  of  eighty  dollars.  It  was  a  manly  and  an 
unequivocal  stand,  in  which  he  warned  the 
" enemies  of  freedom"  that  he  was  "  storm-proof. " 
In  an  era  which  fostered  Colonel  Diver  and  Mr. 
Jeiferson  Brick,  it  is  not  altogether  surprising, 
however  disagreeable,  to  find  that  Garrison,  who 
was  anything  but  a  rowdy,  though  hardly  a  pat 
tern  "gentleman"  of  the  silver- to p  variety,  felt 
the  need,  in  his  defense,  of  calling  General  Webb, 
of  the  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer,  a  "  cow 
ardly  ruffian,"  and  Colonel  Stone,  of  the  Commercial 
Advertiser,  a  "miserable  liar  and  murderous  hypo- 
1  Life,  Vol.  I,  p.  387.  2  Vol.  Ill,  p.  179. 


110          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

criten  ;  but  such  were  the  warm  journalistic  man 
ners  of  a  time  when  the  people  of  this  country  were 
developing  into  a  sharp  self-consciousness  and  a 
rather  loose-tongued  way  of  differing  one  with 
another.  It  was  lamentably  bad  taste,  as  we  now 
think,  but  no  one  can  fail  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  the  oracular  editorials  of  those  days.  If 
they  were  not  academic,  neither  were  they  Delphic. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  second  report  of 
the  New  England  Society  was  able  to  announce 
the  formation  of  forty  anti-slavery  organizations 
distributed  throughout  the  North,  and  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  Garrison's  name  was  fast  growing  at  home 
and  in  England,  the  real  work  done  thus  far  was 
mostly  personal  and  local.  A  national  society,  witli 
its  greater  possibilities  of  every  sort,  was  needed. 
The  first  call  for  such  an  organization  was  issued 
on  October  20,  1833.  by  Arthur  Tappau,  Joshua 
Leavitt,  and  Elizur  Wright,  Jr. — all  of  that  city 
anti-slavery  meeting  so  stormily  born  in  the  Chat 
ham  Street  chapel  in  New  York  only  three  weeks 
earlier.  On  December  4th  fifty  or  sixty  delegates, 
only  two  or  three  of  whom  were  colored,  assembled 
in  Adelphi  Hall,  Philadelphia.  Many  of  these 
delegates  were  Quakers,  and  there  were  also  several 
women  (chief  among  them  Lucretia  Mott)  who 
took  part  in  the  discussions  but  who  were  not 
asked  to  sign  the  Declaration  of  Sentiments,  though 
formally  thanked  by  the  male  delegates  for  the 
interest  taken  by  them  in  the  proceedings.  The 
meetings  were  guarded  by  the  police,  but  two 
members  of  the  Colonization  Society,  a  large 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL    111 

number  of  Southern  medical  students 1  and  others 
were  made  welcome  in  the  spectators'  seats.  The 
Eev.  Beriah  Green,  a  man  of  genuine  ability  and 
force  of  character  and  a  professor  in  Western  Be- 
serve  College,  was  chosen  president,  and  Lewis 
Tappan  and  John  G.  Whittier,  who  had  journeyed 
from  Boston  with  Garrison,  were  made  secretaries. 
There  were  present  at  this  convention  men  after 
ward  of  signal  importance  in  the  anti-slavery 
annals,  such  as  Samuel  J.  May,  E.  L.  Capron,  the 
two  Winslows,  Nathan  and  Isaac,  from  Maine ; 
Arnold  Buffum,  Thomas  Shipley,  Joshua  Coffin, 
Amos  A.  Phelps,  William  Goodell,  Eobert  Purvis, 
James  M.  McKirn,  and  others  who  well  deserve 
mention. 

Thus  far,  Mr.  Garrison,  the  protagonist  of  the 
convention,  seems  to  have  played  a  quiet  part,  but 
he  was  presently  appointed  on  a  committee  of  ten  to 
draw  up  a  declaration  of  principles.  This  commit 
tee  selected  a  sub-committee,  consisting  of  Garrison, 
Whittier  and  May,  which  was  to  report  the  next 
morning  to  their  associates.  This  sub-committee 
entrusted  the  actual  building  of  the  paper  to  Garri 
son,  their  "  coryphaeus,7'  and,  according  to  Samuel 
J.  May's  interesting  narrative,2  left  him  at  ten 
o'clock  at  night  to  find  him  at  eight  the  next  morn 
ing  just  ending  his  task.  It  was  fitting  that  this 
important  document,  conceived  and  endorsed  in  all 
seriousness  by  a  most  earnest  body,  should  have 
been  actually  composed  in  the  home  of  a  colored 


1  Life,  Vol.  I,  p.  398. 

2  May's  Recollections,  p.  86. 


112          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

woman,  who  was  a  delegate.  The  whole  committee 
found  little  to  erase  or  amend,  although  they  de 
cided  to  omit  an  attack  upon  the  Colonization  So 
ciety  as  conflicting  with  the  directness  and  integrity 
of  the  general  text.  May  admits  that  the  commit 
tee  "  writhed  somewhat"  under  the  severity  of  Gar 
rison's  arraignments,  but  gives  him  credit  for  falling 
in  gracefully  with  the  opinions  of  his  associates  on 
the  ground  that  it  was  their  report,  not  his. 

While  the  convention  was  waiting  for  the  commit 
tee  to  submit  its  draft,  there  took  place  one  of  those 
incidents  so  dear  to  the  Abolitionist  heart,  so  little 
in  accord  with  the  temper  of  later  days.  Various 
speakers,  and  especially  Lewis  Tappan,  with  over 
flowing  souls,  beguiled  the  hours,  in  part,  by  loud 
praises  of  Mr.  Garrison.  Whittier  read  a  poem  ad 
dressed  to  his  friend,  while  Tappau,  among  other 
extravagances,  quoted  the  words  of  a  clergyman 
that  "a  more  discreet,  humble  and  faithful  Chris 
tian  "  he  never  had  seen.  As  soon  as  he  found  a 
suitable  opportunity,  Mr.  Garrison,  who  was  by  no 
means  devoid  of  the  human  fondness  for  approba 
tion,  had  the  good  sense  to  write  that,  "  the  pane 
gyric  of  our  friends  is  incomparably  more  afflicting 
to  us  than  the  measureless  defamation  of  our  ene 
mies."  l  The  merit  of  this  avowal  should,  however, 
be  somewhat  qualified  by  a  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  opposition  and  detraction  seemed  to  act 
as  a  wholesome  stimulus  to  his  faculties  and  his 
energy. 

The  declaration,   when  ready,  was  debated  arid 

1  Liberator,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  202. 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL    113 

weighed  with  all  gravity,  but  the  text  was  accepted 
with  few  changes  and  signed  by  sixty -three  dele 
gates. 

Beyond  doubt,  the  men  and  women  who  attended 
this  convention  felt  that  they  were  concerned  in 
framing  a  paper  likely  to  have  as  far-reaching  con 
sequences  as  had  that  other  declaration  put  forth  in 
the  same  city  fifty -seven  years  earlier.  The  possible 
failure  of  their  efforts  would  not  have  constituted 
treason,  but  there  was  good  reason  to  anticipate 
danger  and  perhaps  loss  of  life  in  the  time  to  come. 
The  sweet  possibilities  of  martyrdom  were  ever  be 
fore  the  devotees,  and  they  all  had  a  courage  never 
to  be  questioned — least  of  all  in  the  framer  of  the 
declaration.  This  now  famous  manifesto  rejected 
"  the  use  of  all  carnal  weapons  for  deliverance  from 
bondage,"  and  relied  only  upon  "the  opposition  of 
moral  purity  to  moral  corruption — the  destruction 
of  error  by  the  potency  of  truth — the  overthrow  of 
prejudice  by  the  power  of  love — and  the  abolition 
of  slavery  by  the  spirit  of  repentance. "  Could  they 
who  gave  these  bravely  innocent  words  life  have 
possibly  foreseen  that,  as  years  went  by,  their  own 
vituperation  and  unchecked  passion  for  abuse 
would  contribute  largely  to  throwing  the  slavehold- 
ing  states  into  a  condition  of  fury,  which  robbed 
them  of  prudence,  self-control,  foresight  as  to  the 
probable  issue  of  secession  *  Had  they  been  able  to 
prophesy  the  crisis  only  a  generation  ahead  of  these 
specific  utterances,  and  to  foresee  the  subsequent 
violence  of  their  attacks,  would  they  have  paused 
in  their  self-appointed  task  ?  Probably  not ;  even 


114          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEKISON 

as  it  was,  before  long  some  of  them  began  to  have 
misgivings,  and  upon  these  faltering  ones  Garrison 
and  his  immediate  followers  heaped  abuse  almost  as 
violent  as  upon  slavery  itself. 

Naturally  the  declaration  opposed  giving  compen 
sation  to  slaveholders  who  should  emancipate  their 
slaves  ;  if  any  were  given,  it  should  go  to  the  slaves 
and  not  to  their  masters — a  proposal  as  logical  as  it 
was  irritating.  The  declaration  went  on  shrewdly 
to  concede  the  right  of  each  sovereign  state  to  "  leg 
islate  exclusively  on  the  subject  of  slavery  which  is 
tolerated  within  its  limits,"  but  held  that  Congress 
had  the  right  "to  suppress  the  domestic  slave-trade 
between  the  several  states  and  to  abolish  slavery  in 
those  portions  of  its  territory  which  the  Constitu 
tion  has  placed  under  its  exclusive  jurisdiction." 
It  omitted  to  say,  however,  in  what  manner  Con 
gress  might  enforce  such  restrictive  legislation. 
For  those  who  have  a  fancy  for  imaginative  history 
it  would  be  a  curious  task  to  portray  the  working  of 
an  interstate  commerce  act  at  present  in  a  country 
where  slavery  and  a  powerful  moral  and  physical 
opposition  to  it  should  still  co-exist. 

Closing  with  uncompromising  threats  as  to  the 
means  to  be  employed  in  making  the  new  organiza 
tion  and  its  publications  effective,  even  to  the  point 
of  threatening  to  dispense  with  the  products  of  slave 
labor,  the  declaration's  final  word  was  a  solemn 
pledge  to  do  "  all  that  in  us  lies  consistently  with 
this  declaration  of  our  principles,  to  overthrow  the 
most  execrable  system  of  slavery  that  has  ever  been 
witnessed  upon  earth  .  .  .  come  what  may  to 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL    115 

our  persons,  our  interests,  or  our  reputations  ;  "  it 
was  then  signed  on  December  6,  1833.  The  Consti 
tution  followed,  in  more  formal  and  less  exuberant 
language,  the  general  affirmations  of  the  declaration. 
Arthur  Tappan,  who  was  not  present  at  the  con 
vention,  was  elected  the  first  president ;  Elizur 
Wright,  Jr.,  secretary  of  domestic  correspondence  ; 
Garrison,  secretary  of  foreign  correspondence  j 
A.  L.  Cox,  recording  secretary ;  and  "William 
Green,  Jr.,  treasurer.1  The  foreign  secretary  soon 
resigned,  probably  not  without  feelings  of  mortifica 
tion,  because  of  certain  restrictions  imposed  upon  the 
office.  During  the  thirties  he  held  no  important 
position  in  the  society.  This  secretaryship  later  was 
filled  by  the  Rev.  Samuel  Hanson  Cox,  who  ulti 
mately  forsook  the  ranks  of  simon-pure  Aboli 
tionism. 

The  birth  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society 
marked  the  close  of  the  five  years  since  Garrison  be 
gan  to  advocate  "  the  gradual  emancipation  of  every 
slave  in  the  republic"  in  the  Beunington  paper 
established  to  forward  the  reelection  of  the  second 
Adams.  He  himself  had  changed  in  those  five 
years,  and  was  to  change  still  more  radically,  but 
he  already  saw  great  accomplishments,  not  the  least 
of  which  was  the  establishment  of  an  anti-slavery 
literature  written  with  ability  and  calculated  to 
have  its  effect.  The  principal  work  done  was  the 
acting  of  individuals  on  other  individuals,  and  there 
was  none  of  the  compulsive  force  of  organization 
acting  on  the  general  mass.  The  formation  of  the 
1  Life,  Vol.  I,  p.  415. 


116          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

American  An ti -Slavery  Society  introduced  new 
elements,  and  tended  to  nationalize  a  still  compact 
movement. 

On  his  way  to  attend  the  Philadelphia  conven 
tion,  Garrison  wrote  to  his  friend  George  W.  Ben- 
sou  of  Providence  that,  among  the  charms  at  the 
home  of  the  latter's  father  in  Brooklyn,  Conn., 
"the  soft  blue  eyes  and  pleasant  countenance  of 
Miss  Ellen  are  by  no  means  impotent  or  unattract 
ive."  Garrison  was  fond  of  the  society  of  women  ; 
he  was  perhaps  a  little  sentimental  and  effusiveln 
their  presence  and  in  correspondence  with  them. 
He  had  an  attractive  and  a  virile  personality,  and 
probably  gave  as  much  satisfaction  as  he  took  from 
his  many  friends  of  the  other  sex.  In  a  high- 
minded  and  frank  way  he  liked  women.  There  is 
no  occasion  here  to  enlarge  upon  his  brief  court 
ship,  or  the  worldly  imprudence  of  marrying  at  a 
time  when  his  fortunes,  if  such  a  word  can  be  used, 
were  at  lowest  ebb.  His  excuse  was  the  frequent 
excuse  of  youth  :  a  pure-minded  love,  and  a  willing 
ness  to  work  harder  for  two  than  for  one.  "Matri 
mony,'7  he  wrote  to  his -wife's  brother,  "  instead  of 
hindering,  rather  advances  my  labors."  It  is  suf 
ficient  to  say  that  early  in  April,  1833,  when  Gar 
rison,  on  his  way  to  England,  took  leave  of  his 
colored  friends  in  the  African  Church  in  Providence, 
Miss  Helen  Benson,  daughter  of  George  and  sister  of 
Henry  E.  and  George  W.  Benson,  saw  Garrison  for 
the  first  time.  In  January  of  1834  he  definitely  be 
gan  his  courtship  and  on  September  4th  of  this  year 
the  wedding  took  place,  the  young  couple  being 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL    117 

married  at  Miss  Benson's  home  by  the  Kev. 
Samuel  J.  May.  The  new  home  was  in  Koxbury, 
Mass.,  then  a  town  separate  from  Boston,  of  which 
it  is  now  a  part,  and  -was  joyously  named  "  Free 
dom'  s^Cottage"  j  here  also  lived  Knapp,  Garrison's 
partner.  Miss  Benson,  cozily  called  "  Peace  and 
Plenty ' '  by  her  affectionate  family,  was  a  very  sane 
and  wholesome  woman,  .as  was  Garrison's  own 
mother,  but  she  had,  as  was  suitable,  some  rebellious 
blood  in  her  veins.  Her  father,  who  had  retired  on 
a  moderate  competence  gained  as  a  merchant  in 
Providence,  had  been  long  interested  in  anti-slavery 
in  its  earlier  and  less  definite  days.  He  had  been 
an  incorporator  of  one  of  the  Abolition  societies, 
and  at  the  time  of  his  daughter's  marriage  was 
President  of  the  New  England  Anti- Slavery  Society. 
A  remote  strain  of  protest  against  social  oppression 
came  down  in  the  young  wife  from  the  Eev. 
Obadiah  Holmes,  who  had  been  t  i  publicly  whipped 
in  Boston,  1651,  for  holding  service,  at  the  bedside  of 
an  invalid  brother  Baptist. ' '  l  Mr.  Benson  himself, 
once  a  Baptist,  had  joined  the  Society  of  Friends, 
that  potent  body  of  religious  opposition  to  slavery 
in  the  abstract  from  earliest  days.  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  might  have  looked  in  vain  for  a  sweeter 
woman  or  a  better  helpmate  to  stand  by  him  in  the 
arduous  years  to  come. 

Even  before  he  was  thus  happily  if  rashly  mar 
ried,  he  found  himself  in  straits  financially.     The 
Liberator  had  been  failing  to  reach  its  subscribers 
with  due  regularity.     The  efforts  to  make  a  canvass 
1  Life,  Vol.  I,  p.  426  n. 


118          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

for  subscriptions,  on  the  part  of  Joshua  Coffin,  who 
had  more  zeal  than  efficiency,  did  not  succeed  in 
bettering  conditions.  Garrison  was  on  the  point  of 
demanding  a  fixed  salary  of  one  thousand  dollars, 
now  made  necessary  through  the  changed  circum 
stances  of  his  life.  He  was  even  willing  to  take 
eight  hundred  dollars  at  iirst,  though  he  could  have 
secured  the  larger  sum  by  becoming  general  agent 
of  the  new  American  Ant i -Slavery  Society.  The 
sum  of  two  thousand  dollars  was  still  owing  the 
publishers  of  the  Liberator  on  the  first  three  vol 
umes  ;  the  weekly  edition  numbered  two  thousand 
three  hundred  copies,  of  which  four  hundred  went 
to  Philadelphia,  three  hundred  to  New  York,  and 
two  hundred  to  Boston.  The  exchange  list  was 
about  one  hundred  aud  fifty  copies.  Three-quar 
ters  of  the  subscribers  were  colored  people  and  to 
these  mainly  Garrison  in  his  paper  addressed  in 
capital  letters  the  question,  so  vital  to  their  race, 
" Shall  the  Liberator  die?"  A  month  following 
his  marriage  the  Liberator  went  to  a  new  office  on 
Oornhill  ;  and  a  little  later  Garrison  was  making 
strenuous  efforts  to  lift  the  burdens  of  the  paper  aud 
his  own,  while  his  friends  were  busy  devising  plans 
to  help  him.  In  the  early  part  of  January,  1835, 
he  wrote  to  George  Benson  *  that  he  "  went  home  to 
write  his  valedictory,  aud  to  advertise  the  world  ol' 
the  downfall  of  the  Liberator."  It  had  recently 
been  put  out  at  irregular  intervals,  always  a  most 
threatening  sign  in  any  periodical  publication,  and 
was  reeling  like  a  ship  about  to  capsize.  In  this 

1  Life,  Vol.  I,  p.  468. 


THE  MOVEMENT  MADE  NATIONAL    119 

precarious  condition  it  is  necessary  to  leave  the 
paper  for  a  while,  saying  only  that  it  continued  to 
exist,  if  not  to  thrive,  until  the  editor,  after  hav 
ing  completed  his  task,  saw  fit  to  end  the  unbroken 
series. 

Frank  as  the  biographers  have  been,  they  do  not 
at  this  point  bring  out  clearly  what  seems  to  have 
been  the  fact,  that  by  this  time  many  Abolitionists 
and  anti-slavery  advocates  were  seriously  displeased 
with  Garrison's  severity  of  language,  both  spoken 
and  written,  but  probably  more  with  the  written, 
because  of  its  enduring  sting.  His  fault  lay  in  ap 
plying  harsh  epithets  to  individuals,  rather  than  to 
men  and  principles  in  general.  The  Garrisons  have 
apparently  held  nothing  back,  in  the  way  of  evi 
dence,  as  to  the  growing  displeasure  even  among 
those  still  to  be  accounted  friendly  ;  but  they  seem 
not  to  have  admitted  that  the  heavy  laboring  of  the 
Liberator  may  have  been  due  to  a  practical  manifes 
tation  of  such  displeasure.  Even  the  Eev.  Charles 
Follen,  professor  at  Harvard,  whose  radicalism 
finally  cost  him  dear  at  that  institution,  favored  less 
unmeasured  speech.  Lewis  Tappaii  did  not  relish 
the  criticisms  or  the  occasion  for  them,  while  his 
brother  Arthur  came  within  an  ace  of  veering  off 
the  narrow  path,  probably,  though  not  certainly, 
from  an  uneasiness  lest  Garrison's  course  should 
have  a  disintegrating  tendency. 

One  proposal  was  made  by  the  Eev.  Henry 
Ware,  Jr.,  to  curb  the  wild  horses  of  Mr.  Garrison's 
eloquence,  by  appointing  a  few  gentlemen  who 
should  vise  all  articles  written  for  the  Liberator,  and 


120          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABRISOX 

try  to  persuade  the  editor  to  print  nothing  "  which 
should  not  have  been  approved  by  them."  Garri 
son,  of  all  men,  could  never  have  been  kept  in  such 
traces. 


CHAPTER  V 

A  PROVINCIAL  MOB 

IN  the  midst  of  these  anxieties,— and  they  were 
getting  to  be  many  for  a  man  still  under  thirty — a 
fresh  trouble  appeared  in  the  shape  of  George 
Thompson,  "Beverend"  as  he  was  sometimes 
styled.  Thompson,  who  was  just  six  months  older 
than  Garrison,  had  made  the  latter' s  acquaintance 
in  England  and  was  well  informed  on  conditions  in 
this  country,  but  significantly  had  been  careful, 
while  on  British  soil,  not  to  attack  our  affairs  too 
harshly.  John  Bright  many  years  later  (in  1864) 
said  that  he  had  always  "  considered  Mr.  Thomp 
son  as  the  real  liberator  of  the  slaves  in  the  English 
colonies. "  l  He  was  of  fine  presence  and  a  natural 
orator,  "his  action  all  that  Demosthenes  could  de 
sire,"  says  Garrison  effusively.  He  was  the  agent  of 
the  London  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and  by  invitation 
of  the  two  leading  anti -slavery  societies  in  this  coun 
try,  he  had  come  to  lecture  here.  He  was  preceded, 
however,  by  Captain  Charles  Stuart,  a  half-pay  of 
ficer  retired  from  the  East  India  service,  who  had 
exposed  the  Colonization  Society  in  England,  but 
who  later  became  most  inimical  to  Garrison.  In 
their  friendly  years  Garrison  speaks  of  Stuart  as 
"solemn,  pungent,  and  severe."  To  Garrison's 
1  London  Farewell  Soiree  to  George  Thompson. 


122          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

ears,  Thompson's  name  was  "  as  sweet  as  the  tones 
of  a  flute,"  but  it  was  not  at  all  dear  to  the  majority 
of  cis- Atlantic  ears.  His  visit  was  resented  as  an 
intrusion,  on  the  part  of  a  lt  foreigner,"  in  affairs 
peculiarly  our  own.  John  Fiske  in  his  essay  on 
'  i  Andrew  Jackson  and  American  Democracy  Sev 
enty  Years  Ago,"  has  well  outlined  the  dawning 
national  sense  of  self-importance  at  this  period.  It 
seemed  to  him  a  wholesome  sort  of  provincialism, 
but  with  many  crudities,  among  them  "swagger 
and  tall  talk."  We  could  barely  tolerate  Mrs. 
Trollope  and  Charles  Dickens,  the  former  hostile  in 
spirit,  the  other  friendly,  because  they  indicated  our 
follies  in  certain  and  sometimes  shrill  tones.  Our 
sense  of  humor  managed  to  save  us  from  mobbing 
our  critics,  but  we  were  still  too  young,  too  raw,  to 
endure  one  who  should  tell  us  pointedly  of  our  sins. 
Besides,  Mrs.  Trollope  and  Dickens  were  "  liter 
ary"  and  therefore  comparatively  harmless,  but 
George  Thompson  was  by  no  means  harmless.  He 
was,  of  a  truth,  rather  a  terrible  person,  and  he 
could  not  only  wound,  but  rub  salt  in  the  raw. 
Even  Garrison  was  not  his  superior  in  this  respect. 
During  the  summer  there  had  been  some  pre 
liminary  acts  of  violence,  mainly  in  New  York. 
The  Tappans'  private  property  in  that  city  had 
been  attacked,  MissCrandall's  school  at  Canterbury, 
Conn.,  suppressed,  and  there  were  other  outbreaks 
in  several  Northern  states.  For  these  events  the 
newspaper  press  of  the  day,  nearly  as  offensive  as 
much  American  journalism  is  at  present  and  far 
more  blatant,  was  in  no  small  part  responsible. 


A  PBOVINCIAL  MOB  123 

The  era  of  good  feeling  of  the  previous  decade  had 
given  place  to  an  era  of  very  bad  feeling.  The 
pacific  Monroe  and  the  respectable  second  Adams 
had  made  way  for  the  violent  Jackson,  and  the 
thug,  not  then  an  object  of  tender  solicitude  and 
sociological  observation,  was  finding  himself.  A 
small  epidemic  of  anarchy,  not  confined  to  the 
greater  cities,  was  gathering  force.  The  destruction 
of  the  Ursuline  Convent  in  Charlestown,  Mass.,  was 
nearly  met  with  a  counter-attack  on  Harvard  Col 
lege — all  in  the  interests  of  religion  as  looked  at  by 
men  of  limited  information  and  intelligence  on  two 
opposite  sides.  Even  the  usually  cautious  Col 
onization  Society  came  in  for  a  share  of  the 
restrictive  policy  of  the  populace  in  regard  to  free 
speech,  and  it  is  afflicting  to  read  that  Garrison  did  not 
grieve  over  the  sufferings  of  his  adversaries  when,  in 
several  places,  they  were  denied  an  opportunity  for 
meetings.  He  did,  however,  have  the  satisfaction 
of  being  told  by  the  Rev.  John  Breckenridge  that 
he  (Garrison)  was  "  too  debased  and  degraded  in 
community  for  me,  occupying  the  station  that  I  do, 
to  hold  a  controversy  with  you."  1  This  was  meat 
and  drink  to  Garrison,  and  his  "mind  was  very 
tranquil.'*  Nothing  in  all  the  annals  of  the  man's 
career  was  probably  so  exasperating  to  foe,  and 
possibly  to  friend,  as  this  tranquillity  of  mind, 
which  ironically  held  itself  above  the  boiling  emo 
tions  of  those  who  combated  him  with  tongue  and 
pen,  and  even,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  with  hempen 
rope.  The  writer  of  these  words  remembers  when 

lLife,  Vol.  I,  p.  449. 


124          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

a  boy,  having  seen  the  great  emancipator  at  a 
public  meeting  in  Koxbury,  Mass., — his  permanent 
home  from  1864  to  his  death— seated  on  the  plat 
form,  wearing  that  strange  immobile  smile  of 
dominance  and  utter  conviction  that  he  was  right. 
Such  a  smile  a  judge  might  wear,  as,  in  discharge  of 
his  clear  duty,  he  draws  on  the  black  cap. 

Thompson,  turned  out  of  one  New  York  hotel, 
made  his  way  to  Eoxbury,  and  presently  for  the 
time  being  became  Garrison's  neighbor.  He 
found  ready  audiences,  and  even  churches  were 
opened  to  him.  In  several  towns  he  was  insulted, 
but  in  others  favorably  received.  It  is  not  nec 
essary  tc  know  or  to  rehearse  the  comings  and 
goings  of  Thompson  for  some  months ;  his  ar 
rival  was  a  menace  to  Garrison  himself,  and  his 
stay  here  did  not  allay  strong  feeling  already  roused 
among  the  turbulently  inclined.  There  is  nothing 
vital  to  record,  except  the  always  possible  danger 
of  bodily  harm,  until  August,  1835,  when  there  was 
a  meeting  of  great  respectability  in  Faneuil  Hall, 
Boston,  to  protest  against  the  growing  strength  of 
Abolitionism.  Theodore  Lymau,  Jr.,  was  chair 
man,  and  the  public-spirited  Abbott  Lawrence  was 
a  vice-president.  The  resolutions  deplored  the 
inimical  spirit  manifested  against  the  South  and 
censured  with  "  indignation  and  disgust  the  intru 
sion  upon  our  domestic  relations  of  alien  emis 
saries,  "  l  thereby  signalizing  Thompson.  Early  in 
September  he  was  mobbed,  or  nearly  so,  at  Con 
cord,  N.  H.,  and  the  disparity  between  the  name 

*Life,  Vol.1,  p.  495. 


A  PROVINCIAL  MOB  126 

of  this  place  and  the  treatment  he  received  there 
produced  in  Thompson  mixed  sentiments  of  indigna 
tion  and  of  that  abiding  humor  with  which  many 
of  the  leading  Abolitionists  were  mercifully  sup 
plied.  Everything  was  ripening  for  that  outbreak 
of  local  fury  against  the  two  leaders,  known  in 
anti-slavery  annals  as  the  Boston  mob  of  1835, 
which  the  Englishman  avoided  by  an  honorable 
and  necessary  retreat,  and  out  of  which  Garrison 
escaped,  with  his  life  indeed,  but  with  a  new  sense 
of  the  responsibility  assumed  when  he  deliberately 
fanned  the  fires  of  sectional  hate. 

Before  the  story  is  told,  however,  it  is  necessary 
to  bring  to  mind  the  doings  throughout  the  country 
during  parts  of  the  years  1834  and  1835.  In  the 
former  year  the  trustees  of  Lane  Seminary  at  Wal 
nut  Hills,  Cincinnati,  with  the  consent  of  Dr.  Lyman 
Beecher,  then  president,  virtually  suppressed  all 
vestige  of  academic  freedom,  as  we  understand  the 
phrase,  by  prohibiting  the  existence  of  any  anti- 
slavery  or  colonization  society  within  the  institu 
tion.  This  action  caused  the  withdrawal  of  seventy 
or  eighty  out  of  over  a  hundred  students,  and 
particularly  of  Theodore  D.  Weld,  the  "  master 
spirit,"  as  May  calls  him,  who  fought  for  many 
years  on  the  skirmish  line  of  radicalism,  and  long 
survived  his  leader  Garrison.  James  Gillespie 
Birney  in  the  same  year  gave  up  his  allegiance  to 
the  Colonization  Society,  a  significant  act  on  the  part 
of  one  who  had  once  held  slaves.  Birney'  slater  career 
was  consistent  and  aggressive,  but  was  of  the  Ohio 
variety  of  anti-slavery  ;  this  differed  so  much  from 


126          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

the  more  Eastern  activities  as  to  deserve  considera 
tion  as  a  separate  movement,  until  the  whole  North 
began  to  fuse  in  a  more  general  and  greater  heat 
than  that  aroused  by  any  local  or  personal  en 
deavors,  however  strenuous  they  may  have  been. 
Three  notable  accessions  to  the  Garrison  side  are 
also  to  be  recorded  : — the  enthusiastic  N.  P.  Rogers 
of  New  Hampshire ;  the  Kev.  George  Barrell  Cheever 
of  Saleni  ;  and  by  no  means  least,  Francis  Jackson, 
a  forcible  and  an  earnest  character,  who  a  little 
later  sheltered  Miss  Harriet  Martineau  from  pos 
sible  assault,  in  his  own  house.  Like  Samuel  E. 
Sewall,  Edmund  Quincy  and  Wendell  Phillips, 
Jackson  had  a  social  strength  to  which  many  of 
the  fiercer  sort  of  Abolitionists  could  not  well 
pretend. 

To  vote  or  not  to  vote  was  already  a  question 
with  Abolitionists.  As  time  went  on,  adherents  of 
the  simon-pure  doctrine  decided  with  Garrison  that 
the  exertion  of  moral  and  not  political  influence  was 
the  only  course  to  follow.  The  break  in  the  ranks, 
which  were  in  a  general  sense  unimpaired  for 
several  years,  came  at  last  over  this  matter.  If 
both  national  parties  were  wrong,  or  only  partly 
right,  how  was  it  possible  for  those  who  made  no 
compromises  of  conscience  to  help  elect  men  on 
either  side,  who,  not  being  for  the  true  cause,  were 
against  it?  The  precise  attitude  of  mind  on  the 
part  of  the  Abolitionists  is  hard  to  discover.  If 
they  would  not  vote  themselves,  they  had  the  com 
forting  certainty  that  others  not  so  fastidious  were 
by  slow  political  pressure  strengthening  the  cause. 


A  PROVINCIAL  MOB  127 

Perhaps  they  perceived  with  an  acumen  beyond 
any  particular  outward  evidence  that,  if  it  takes  all 
kinds  of  people  to  make  a  world,  it  also  takes 
several  kinds  of  ethics  to  get  up  enough  momentum 
to  speed  a  worthy  purpose.  Garrison,  as  his  sons 
have  told,1  put  himself,  at  this  time,  into  the  arena 
of  politics  just  once,  cast  a  vote,  and  then  withdrew 
into  his  own  absolutely  individualistic  courses.  He 
opposed  the  election  of  Abbott  Lawrence  to  Con 
gress  from  the  first  Massachusetts  district,  and 
voted  for  Amasa  Walker,  an  Abolitionist,  notwith 
standing  the  fact  that  Lawrence  was  only  non-com 
mittal,  good  Whig  that  he  was,  and  claimed  the  right 
to  go  to  Washington,  bound  by  no  pledges.  Of  the 
democratic  necessity  for  compromise  Garrison  seems 
not  to  have  had  the  faintest  comprehension  ;  yet 
inevitably  it  came  to  pass  that  his  own  cause  was  car 
ried  safely  over  many  shoals  by  the  larger  currents 
of  national  activities.  It  was  floated  and  carried 
forward  by  the  very  medium  which  he  affected  most 
to  despise.  He,  however,  was  not  blind,  and  pre 
dicted  that  the  great  question  would  soon  be  more 
than  an  angry  discussion,  and  that  the  District  of 
Columbia  would  be  the  first  strategic  point  to  be 
gained  by  one  side  or  the  other. 

Early  in  the  year  1835,  a  flank  movement  was  at 
tempted  by  the  colonization  sentiment,  which  was 
dying,  but  dying  hard.  A  number  of  Congrega- 
tionaltst  (Trinitarian)  clergymen,  who  did  not  like 
the  pace  at  which  Garrison  was  traveling,  although 
he  had  not  as  yet  made  the  least  break  with  the 
1  Life,  Vol.  I,  p.  455. 


128          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

formal  religion  which  he  still  professed,  undertook 
t6  start  the  American  Union  for  the  Belief  and  Im 
provement  of  the  Colored  Race.  Its  career  was  as 
brief  as  its  title  was  long,  but  Arthur  Tappau  was 
seduced  into  a  temporary  interest  in  the  project. 
His  answer  to  the  objections  of  his  friends  to  this 
step  was  shortly  after  to  subscribe  five  thousand  dol 
lars  to  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society.  The 
new  Union,  started  to  collect  statistics  on  the  status 
of  the  negro,  did  not  openly  seek  to  antagonize  any 
thing  from  slavery  to  an ti- slavery  and  the  interven 
ing  territory  of  varying  opinion.  It  was  not  an 
era,  apparently,  in  which  to  foster  successfully 
a  popular  sentiment  for  carefully  collected  and 
digested  facts,  and  therefore  by  the  end  of  a  year 
and  a  half  the  American  Union  resembled  Pliable  in 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  whom  Christian  "saw  no  more." 
Seeming  to  triumph  over  such  preliminary  efforts 
to  make  a  diversion  against  his  own  methods,  Garri 
son  was  nevertheless  fast  approaching  a  point  in  his 
career  where  the  thin  oppositions  were  to  become 
formidable.  The  church — and  by  this  is  meant  the 
whole  body  of  organized  religion, — was  to  be  com 
pelled,  by  force  of  events,  to  take  sides.  While  it 
is  perfectly  true  that  from  the  church  are  continu 
ally  issuing  men  and  women  who  are  willing  to  put 
off  the  old  man  and  put  on  the  new, — it  is  even 
more  true  that  the  church,  in  and  by  itself,  as  a 
composite  whole,  is  conservative  and  never  leads. 
If  it  advances,  it  moves  one  foot  slowly  and  with 
much  caution.  If  the  ground  bears,  it  will  draw  up 
the  other  foot,  and  a  new  position  is  then  taken,  in 


A  PKOVINCIAL  MOB  129 

a  place  perhaps  already  abandoned  by  the  ever- 
advancing  little  band  of  those  uncomfortable 
idealists,  called  reformers.  Now  the  church  was 
by  no  means  ready  to  follow  William  Lloyd  Garri 
son  in  his  wholesale  condemnation  of  those  fellow 
Christians  who  were  unfortunate  enough  to  hold,  as 
under  a  sort  of  trust,  property  in  human  beings. 
According  to  the  religious  conception  of  the  day, 
the  Saviour  of  mankind  was  not  abusive  or  violent, 
in  spite  of  the  incidents  of  the  money-changers  and 
the  Pharisees,  and  it  was  thought  not  right  that  any 
professed  follower  of  Christ  should  be  condemnatory 
after  a  fashion  for  which  his  Master  had  set  no  prec 
edent.  He  should  the  rather  make  a  careful  dis 
tinction  between  the  things  that  are  Caesar's  and 
those  that  are  God's.  This  was  reason  enough  for 
discovering  sad  differences  between  Garrison's 
methods  and  Christian  practice.  It  is  not  neces 
sary  at  this  day  to  inquire  diligently  whether  the 
orthodox  side  brought  worldly  prudence  to  its  sup 
port.  Probably  it  did — certainly  it  did,  according 
to  the  extremists.  And  the  fact  remains  that,  ac 
cording  to  Christian  doctrine  as  commonly  inter 
preted,  Garrison  and  his  followers  were  brawlers 
and  disturbers  of  that  heavenly  peace  wherein 
religious  beliefs  do  most  comfortably  thrive.  As  a 
sequence  to  the  growing  opposition  to  such  icono- 
clasm,  various  religious  bodies  began  to  set  their 
faces  against  the  extension  of  anti-slavery  propa- 
gandism  as  carried  on  up  to  about  the  year  1 835. 
Conferences,  Synods,  Presbyteries  of  the  several 
sects  began  to  grow  cold  toward  Garrisonian  Aboli- 


130         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

tionism.  Bible  and  tract  societies  became  suddenly 
willing,  on  grounds  of  expediency,  not  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  every  creature,  if,  by  so  doing,  irritation 
and  alarm  were  to  be  spread  throughout  the  South, 
where  as  yet  no  schism  threatened  to  divide  the  two 
sections  of  the  country,  so  far  as  religious  organiza 
tion  and  cohesion  were  concerned.  The  fixity  of 
Garrison's  faith,  hitherto  strong,  was  beginning  to 
waver,  especially  when  he  perceived  that  his  own 
sect  like  the  others  was  moved  by  policy,  not  con 
viction.  There  now  begins  to  appear,  in  Garrison's 
opinions,  a  change  toward  a  rigid  formalism  in 
religious  matters,  which  culminated  in  a  final  rejec 
tion  of  nearly  all  the  observances  once  found  neces 
sary  to  his  spiritual  well-being.  With  the  approach 
of  Thanksgiving  Day  of  this  year  (1835)  he  writes  to 
George  Benson  that  he  is  growing  "more  and  more 
hostile  to  outward  forms  and  ceremonies  and  observ 
ances  as  a  religious  duty."  It  was  the  first  indica 
tion  of  an  attitude  which  was  to  set  him  at  odds 
with  influential  opponents  of  slavery,  and  ulti 
mately  to  weaken  his  position  in  some  important 
respects. 

In  midsummer  there  was  held  in  Xew  York  a 
meeting  strongly  Southern  in  complexion,  pri 
marily  to  devise  means  to  head  off  the  now  dreaded 
anti-slavery  agitation  and  the  "  fanatics"  like 
Garrison  and  the  Tappans,  whose  effigies  were 
burned  in  Charleston,  S.  C.,  by  an  infuriated  mob, 
driven  to  desperation  by  the  discovery  of  inflam 
mable  material  sent  to  that  city  through  the  agency 
of  the  unceasingly  busy  American  Anti-Slavery 


A  PROVINCIAL  MOB  131 

Society.  The  North  was  frankly  appealed  to  by 
several  of  the  slaveholding  states  to  do  all  in  its 
power  to  stay  this  abolition  frenzy,  and  there  was 
put  forward  the  subsequently  familiar  argument 
that  the  settlement  of  the  slave  question  rested  en 
tirely  with  the  states  which  sustained  the  burden. 
To  meet  the  wishes  of  their  Southern  friends,  the 
first  men  of  Boston — there  is  no  need  of  qualifying 
the  truth  of  this  fact— called  a  meeting  for  August 
21st,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  to  discountenance  the  sedi 
tious  principles  of  what  even  John  Quincy  Adams  at 
that  time  wrote  down  as  "  a  small,  shallow  and  en 
thusiastic  party,  preaching  the  abolition  of  slavery 
upon  the  principles  of  extreme  democracy. " 

The  meeting  was  a  Whig  affair — its  entire  re 
spectability  was  proof  of  this — but  neither  Daniel 
Webster  nor  Edward  Everett  was  present.  The 
principal  speakers  were  Peleg  Sprague  and  Harrison 
Gray  Otis,  both  Harvard  graduates  and  both 
lawyers.  They  said  with  great  eloquence  and 
fervor  the  very  things  which  were  expected  of 
them,  but  they  did  not  expostulate  against  the 
practical  holding  back  or  "  retention,"  by  Post 
master-general  Kendall,  of  certain  material  in  the 
United  States  mail  containing  the  heated  anti- 
slavery  arguments  of  the  hour.  Of  the  meeting 
and  the  manipulation  of  the  mail,  the  terrible 
Adams  wrote  down  with  his  gravest  irony,  "  All 
this  is  democracy  and  the  rights  of  man."  Toward 
Otis,  Garrison  in  the  Liberator  showed  a  commiserat 
ing  sternness  not  unmixed  with  consideration,  but 
for  Peleg  Sprague  he  exhibited  no  tenderness.  He 


132          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEKISON 

struck  and  spared  not  the  orator  whom  he  found 
"  diabolical." 

Some  days  later  he  was  rewarded  for  his  editorial 
attack  on  the  Faueuil  Hall  meeting  by  the  erection 
in  front  of  his  Boston  home  on  Brighton  Street 
of  a  stout  gallows,  built  for  the  imaginary  "  work 
ing  off"  of  two  malefactors,  himself  and  George 
Thompson.  It  was  an  ominous  foretaste  of  what 
was  soon  to  follow. 

On  September  26,  1835,  Garrison  arrived  in 
Boston  after  a  month's  absence,  only  to  find  what 
seemed  to  him  a  condition  of  apathy,  but  what  was 
in  reality  that  slow  moving  of  the  waters  j  ust  before 
the  pot  begins  to  boil.  With  characteristic  unin- 
telligence  the  public  mind  had  begun  slowly  to 
concentrate  its  wrath  on  George  Thompson,  who 
during  the  year  had  been  moving  about  New 
England,  speaking  mostly  in  the  churches  of  denomi 
nations  liberal  minded  enough  to  open  their  doors. 
Thompson  went  also  to  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
Albany  and  Troy,  where  he  seems  to  have  spoken 
without  rousing  hostile  feeling.  The  year  saw  him 
twice  in  Andover,  but  the  theological  defenses  of  that 
once  potent  citadel  of  orthodoxy  were  successfully 
prepared  to  sustain  a  long  siege.  A  little  past  the 
middle  of  the  summer  opinion  began  to  rise  against 
him,  his  lectures  were  disturbed  and  broken  up, 
and  stones  were  thrown.  His  doctrines  were  offen 
sive,  but  the  fact  that  he  was  a  "  foreigner  "  seems 
to  have  been  equally  serious,  when  he  failed  silently 
to  assimilate  with  established  American  policies. 
The  South  at  this  time  was  waxing  still  warmer 


A  PROVINCIAL  MOB  133 

against  Garrison,  Arthur  Tappan,  and  chiefly 
against  Thompson.  Throwing  stones  satisfied  the 
unrest  of  the  North,  but  the  South,  with  its  usual 
candor,  wanted  the  heads  of  these  incendiary 
fanatics.  With  threats  of  a  boycott— the  word 
did  not  then  exist — of  Northern  trade,  there 
arose  the  suggestion  of  sending  the  Abolitionists 
to  Coventry  and  keeping  them  there.  The  North 
as  yet  had  not  "developed  its  conscience  to  the  point 
reached  by  the  colonists  before  the  Eevolution, 
when  it  was  prepared  to  languish  commercially  for 
the  sake  of  a  principle,  and  so  naturally  was  fain 
to  turn  upon  the  troublesome  radicals  and — let 
them  alone.  The  Abolitionists  in  Boston,  who  at 
this  time  seemed  not  especially  inclined  to  foment 
strife  by  any  exciting  conduct  on  their  own  part, 
gave  public  notice  of  a  meeting  of  the  Boston 
Female  Anti-Slavery  Society,  to  be  held  on  October 
14th,  to  which  women  only  were  invited,  and  which 
Mr.  Thompson  was  to  address.  Immediately  there 
arose  a  civic  restlessness ;  the  Commercial  Gazette 
of  Boston  took  upon  itself  the  prediction  of  trouble 
at  this  meeting,  not  * i  from  a  rabble,  but  from  men 
of  property  and  standing,"  a  phrase  which  was 
destined  to  live  in  the  annals  of  this,  the  least 
creditable  of  the  many  events  in  Boston's  vivid 
history.  It  became  advisable,  and  indeed  necessary, 
to  postpone  the  date  to  October  21st  and  to  change 
the  place  of  meeting  to  a  hall  at  46  Washington 
Street,  the  headquarters  of  the  anti-slavery  office, 
in  a  building  yet  in  existence.  The  name  of  Mr. 
Thompson  was  dropped  from  the  program,  and  the 


134         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

day  before  the  announced  meeting  he  left  Boston, 
and,  as  it  soon  proved,  the  country.  The  plotters 
of  trouble,  however,  believed  that  he  was  still  in 
town,  and  at  about  this  time,  and  perhaps  on  the 
eventful  day  itself,  " Thirty  Truckmen"  gave 
warning  that  the  Liberator  must  cease  publication, 
else  its  editor  would  receive  a  coat  of  tar  and 
feathers — that  most  senseless  of  all  forms  of  public 
disapproval,  but  highly  in  favor  at  all  times  among 
the  dull-witted. 

Only  a  few  hours  before  the  outrage  took  place, 
there  flamed  forth  about  the  town  a  most  incendi 
ary  handbill,  directed  against  Thompson,  urging 
"  friends  of  the  Union  "  to  snake  him  out,  and  offer 
ing  a  liberal  reward  to  the  first  individual  who 
should  be  the  means  of  bringing  him  to  the  tar- 
kettle.  This  precious  instrument  was  projected  by 
two  Central  Wharf  merchants  and  written  by  James 
L.  Homer,  a  large  portion  of  the  edition  finding  its 
way  into  the  hands  of  North  End  mechanics,  an 
element  most  likely  to  appreciate  the  opportunity 
offered.  The  body  of  the  plan  was  doubtless  to 
prevent  the  holding  of  the  meeting  of  the  Boston 
Female  Anti-Slavery  Society — a  society  which,  as 
Mr.  Homer  admitted,  was  not  endorsed  by  thought 
ful  minds  of  that  day  in  the  North  End  of  Boston. 

The  handbills  did  their  work  quickly,  and  by  the 
time  that  Garrison  arrived  at  the  hall,  at  twenty 
minutes  before  three  in  the  afternoon,  a  crowd  had 
already  assembled  in  the  street,  and  eventually 
swelled  to  between  two  and  five  thousand  people. 
About  a  score  of  women  were  in  the  hall,  one  of 


A  PROVINCIAL  MOB  135 

whom  was  the  indomitable  arid  able  Maria  Weston 
Chapman,  many  years  later  the  biographer  of  Har 
riet  Martineau.  A  press  of  more  or  less  disorderly 
and  menacing  men  began  to  throng  about  the  stair 
way  and  the  door.  In  accordance  with  the  wishes 
of  the  president  of  the  society,  Miss  Mary  S.  Parker, 
Garrison  decided  to  leave  the  meeting,  and  with 
Charles  C.  Burleigh,  went  into  the  office  of  the 
Anti- Slavery  Society,  where  he  began  to  write  to  a 
friend  an  account  of  the  events  actually  happening 
about  him.  General  Theodore  Lyman,  Jr.,  then 
mayor  of  Boston,  soon  arrived,  to  find  an  increasing 
mob,  becoming  more  and  more  excited  by  their  own 
cries  for  Thompson.  He  failed  in  his  first  tactics 
by  urging  instead  of  ordering  the  riotous  throng  to 
disperse.  Meanwhile  the  women,  with  the  calm 
ness  of  seraphs,  began  to  hold  their  meeting,  show 
ing  that  desperate  courage  of  which  their  sex  seems 
peculiarly  capable.  Deaf  to  the  persuasions  of  the 
mayor,  the  crowd,  possibly  awed  or  ashamed  by  the 
persistent  valor  of  the  meeting,  directed  its  attention 
to  the  office  door,  but  Burleigh  turned  the  lock  and 
for  a  moment  Garrison  was  safe.  Under  orders 
from  the  mayor,  who  was  finding  it  equally  difficult 
to  persuade  women  perfectly  willing  to  die  and  men 
ready  for  killing,  the  meeting  adjourned  to  Mrs. 
Chapman's  house  on  West  Street,  going  first,  how 
ever,  to  Francis  Jackson's  home  on  Hollis  Street. 

Since  Thompson  was  not  to  be  found,  and  the 
women  had  retired,  it  was  evident  that  the  mob 
must  turn  its  attention  to  something  definite.  Ac 
cordingly,  with  the  mayor's  assent,  the  sign  of  the 


136          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

Anti-Slavery  Society  was  torn  oil'  and  thrown  into 
the  street  to  be  instantly  smashed.  But  feeding  the 
appetite  of  a  inob  is  a  futile  means  of  appeasing  it. 
The  quarry  was  raw  human  flesh  and  not  a  deal 
board.  As  the  cry  for  "Garrison"  increased  in 
violence,  and  as  the  danger  of  bodily  harm  grew 
more  imminent,  the  strange  young  man  found  time, 
in  a  moment  of  extreme  peril,  to  admonish  a  friendly 
supporter  not  to  relinquish  the  principle  of  non- 
resistance  by  urging  force  even  to  save  life.  Per 
suaded  by  his  friends,  by  the  exigency  of  the  situ 
ation,  and  at  last  by  his  own  common  sense,  Garri 
son  dropped  from  the  rear  of  the  building,  and  tried 
to  enter  Wilson's  Lane,  now  Devonshire  Street,  but 
was  there  blocked  by  the  mob.  Ketreating  up 
stairs,  though  ready  to  surrender  himself,  he  was 
hidden  under  some  boards,  where  the  advance 
guard  of  skirmishers  soon  discovered  him.  Vol 
untarily  descending  a  ladder  to  the  ground,  Gar 
rison  was  then  led,  if  not  dragged,  to  State  Street 
and  back  of  the  City  Hall,  which,  since  the  town  of 
Boston  became  a  city  in  1822,  had  occupied  the 
second  story  of  the  Old  State  House  at  the  head  of 
State  Street.  He  was  hatless,  a  rope  was  about  his 
body,  and  his  clothing  was  partially  torn  from  him. 
With  Josiah  Quincy,  Jr.,  then  president  of  the 
Common  Council,  at  or  near  his  side,  Garrison  was 
brought,  by  the  excellent  mancBuvres  of  Mayor 
Lyman  and  some  constables,  inside  the  south  door 
of  the  City  Hall  which  was  then  immediately  shut 
against  the  crowd,  whose  disposition  seems  to  have 
t>een  to  rush  their  victim  to  the  Frog  Pond  on  Bos- 


A  PBOVINCIAL  MOB  137 

ton  Common,  and  later  to  apply  that  last  degrada 
tion — a  coat  of  tar  and  feathers.  After  Garrison 
had  been  carried  to  the  mayor's  office,  the  mayor 
appealed  to  the  intelligence  of  the  mob  in  the  name 
of  law  and  civil  order.  No  spot  in  the  civilized 
town  of  Boston  seemed  so  safe  a  refuge  for  an  inno 
cent  man  in  such  an  emergency  as  the  common  jail. 
Accordingly,  papers  were  made  out  in  due  form, 
committing  Garrison  as  a  "rioter,"  and  after  he 
had  been  provided  with  various  portions  of  raiment 
from  different  well-wishers  to  replace  the  new  suit 
of  clothes  destroyed  by  his  fellow  citizens,  he 
was  smuggled  out  of  the  north  door.  By  this  time 
Garrison  was  in  an  ecstatic  frame  of  mind,  feeling 
that  it  was  a  "  blessed  privilege  thus  to  suffer  in  the 
cause  of  Christ."  The  hack  into  which  he  was  hur 
ried,  though  assailed  with  great  but  futile  violence, 
made  its  way  through  the  hustling  mass  of  senseless 
fury  to  the  "new  and  last  refuge  of  liberty  and 
life,"  the  jail  in  Leveret t  Street.  Locked  in  a  cell 
with  i  i  two  delightful  associates,  a  good  conscience 
and  a  cheerful  mind,"  John  Bunyan  himself  could 
not  have  been  happier  than  our  malefactor.  The 
next  morning  he  was  free  to  leave  the  jail,  but  by 
request  and  from  motives  of  public  policy,  he  de 
parted  the  city  and  went  with  his  wife  to  Brooklyn, 
Conn.,  the  home  of  the  Bensons. 

It  was  the  first  momentous  crisis  of  Garrison's 
career,  in  which  were  to  occur  many  episodes  terri 
fying  to  a  spirit  less  intrepid.  He  faced  the  ordeal 
with  great  courage,  and  no  charge  lies  against  him 
for  trying  to  escape  when  advised  by  Mayor  Lyman 


138         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABBISON 

so  to  do.  After  the  event,  however,  his  was  not  the 
dumbness  of  the  sheep  before  its  shearer,  and  both 
he  and  his  friends  had  much  to  say  of  the  mayor's 
failure  to  use  the  full  majesty  and  power  of  his 
office  to  forestall  and  quell  civic  violence.  Since 
his  life — granting  it  to  have  been  in  danger — was 
undoubtedly  saved  by  the  resourcefulness  of  Mr. 
Lyman,  the  charge  of  ingratitude  has  been  brought 
against  Garrison.  The  controversy  is  an  inter 
minable  one,  and  the  facts  can  be  interpreted  ac 
cording  to  the  sympathies  of  each  side.  ISTo  serious 
harm  was  done  after  all,  but  out  of  this  really  dis 
creditable  event  was  born  one  phrase  likely  to  re 
main  in  Boston's  annals.  The  Abolitionists  lost  no 
opportunity  to  ring  changes  on  the  characterization 
of  the  mob  as  composed  of  ' '  gentlemen  of  property 
and  standing. ' '  Even  President  Wayland  of  Brown 
University  assured  Miss  Martineau  that  it  was  "all 
right — the  mob  having  been  composed  entirely  of 
gentlemen."  What  was  meant  seriously  as  exten 
uation  was  immediately  and  forever  after  turned 
into  laughter  by  the  ceaseless  iteration  of  the  unfor 
tunate  phrase. 

It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the  true  mob  was 
not  made  up  of  such  lively  fellows — not  necessarily 
of  the  baser,  but  certainly  of  the  humbler  sort — as 
longshoremen,  truckmen,  u  North  Enders,"  and,  in 
short,  many  of  the  kind  which  is  usually  on  hand  at 
a  fire,  or  a  street  fight,  and  which  quickly  resolves 
itself  into  a  mob.  It  was  a  rougli  and  ready  sort, 
little  understood  now  when  the  population  of  every 
large  city  has  a  really  dangerous  class,  and  was  most 


A  PROVINCIAL  MOB  139 

forcibly  personified  by  the  Bowery  Boys  of  New 
York,  from  whom  later  were  recruited  many  of  the 
famous  Zouaves  of  the  Civil  War. 

In  Garrison's  enforced  absence,  Knapp  was 
ordered  to  quit  the  office  where  the  Liberator  was 
published.  The  landlord  of  Garrison's  house,  fear 
ing  an  attack  upon  it,  wished  his  tenant  to  remove 
himself  and  his  belongings.  At  this  crisis,  Samuel  E. 
Sewall,  one  of  the  gentlest  yet  one  of  the  firmest  of 
the  Abolitionists,  offered  to  aid  as  far  as  possible  in 
the  continuance  of  the  Liberator,  which  for  some 
time,  as  has  been  seen,  had  been  in  a  poor  way,  and 
which  naturally  was  now  subject  to  every  sort  of 
financial  pressure. 

At  such  a  juncture,  the  leading  character  was 
eager  to  be  back  on  the  stage,  and  he  informed  his 
partner  that  he  would  soon  be  home,  not  wishing 
the  charge  to  be  made  that  he  had  "  been  driven  out 
of  Boston,  and  dare  not  return."  At  the  same  time 
he  asks  playfully  whether  his  lost  hat  has  yet  been 
found.  On  November  4th,  about  two  weeks  after 
the  mobbing,  Garrison  came  back,  staying  with 
friends,  and  only  visiting  his  own  house.  The  cir 
culation  of  the  paper  began  to  gain  a  little,  and 
there  were  sent  in  occasional  small  sums  to  quicken 
the  cause. 

Early  in  November  Garrison  saw,  as  he  supposed, 
the  last  of  George  Thompson,  who  managed  to  get 
safely  and  secretly  on  board  a  packet  bound  for  St. 
John,  whence  he  was  to  sail  for  England. 

The  extrusion  of  Thompson  from  the  United 
States  proved  to  be  a  powerful  aid  to  the  move- 


140         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

inent,  and  could  Garrison  have  foreseen  this,  he  per 
haps  would  not  have  grieved  so  much,  or  have  ex 
pressed  himself  so  mournfully.  It  gave  the  English 
Abolitionist  a  basis  of  practical  knowledge  and  a 
story  of  personal  experience  on  which  to  build  up  in 
his  own  country  a  yet  stronger  sentiment  against 
American  slavery.  It  would  probably  have  been  to 
the  advantage  of  the  pro -slavery  advocates  to  dis 
pose,  by  fair  means  or  foul,  of  this  formidable  foe  to 
their  security.  As  already  suggested,  it  was  char 
acteristic  of  a  new  country  sorely  to  feel  the 
strictures  of  a  foreigner,  especially  an  Englishman, 
and  the  most  was  doubtless  made  of  this  resent 
ment,  particularly  in  the  South,  and  by  the  cautious 
spirits  of  the  North.  This  objection  to  free  speech 
in  a  visiting  foreigner  has  largely  passed  away,  in 
fact  hardly  even  exists  except  when  fanned  to  a 
blaze  by  a  newspaper  report,  generally  incorrect, 
of  some  visitor's  "  views  "  on  this  country.  Thomp 
son  and  Dickens,  who  also  abominated  black  slavery 
here,  as  he  hated  caste  slavery  in  England,  were 
definite  critics  and  specified  their  opposition  to 
conditions  which  they  found ;  but  so  far  have  we 
advanced  in  toleration  of  other  men's  corrections, 
that  even  twenty  years  ago  we  were  only  amused  at 
the  small  and  sour  strictures  on  our  civilization  ex 
pressed  in  The  Great  Republic,  by  Sir  Lepel  Griffin. 
In  later  years  we  were  to  be  more  fairly  treated 
by  James  Bryce  ;  and  yet  to  those  who  think  at  all 
about  these  matters,  both  Thompson  and  Bryce  had 
merely  the  Englishman's  habit  of  telling  the  truth 
as  he  sees  it.  However  all  this  may  be,  Thompson 


A  PROVINCIAL  MOB  141 

was  quite  guiltless  of  discretion  or  tact,  and  the 
treatment  he  received  might  fairly  have  been  ex 
pected  from  a  people  still  parochially  minded  in  re 
gard  to  foreigners  and  all  their  ways.  It  was  just 
as  indiscreet  for  him  to  talk  as  he  thought  in  super 
heated  Boston,  as  it  was  fifty  years  later  for  Lord 
Frederick  Cavendish  to  go  to  walk  in  Phoenix  Park, 
and  it  would  have  been  no  great  wonder  had  the 
former  shared  the  fate  of  the  latter.  Garrison,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  had  to  take  on  his  own  shoulders 
the  abuse  intended  for  his  English  colleague,  and  it 
is  no  discredit  to  him  that  he  felt  the  joys  as  well  as 
the  sorrows  of  martyrdom.  The  greater  the  abuse 
the  more  vividly  was  the  question  to  which  he  had 
consecrated  his  life  kept  before  the  public  mind. 
The  policy  of  such  radicalism  as  his  has  always  been 
to  irritate  the  sensibilities  of  opponents,  as  eowhage 
maddens  the  epidermis.  He  went  far  in  verbal 
torture  of  his  victims,  some  of  whom,  as  we  now 
must  think,  were  honorable  and  right-minded  men  ; 
but  he  did  not  often  go  to  such  extremes  as  Wendell 
Phillips,  whose  power  to  rasp  seems  at  times  to  have 
been  inordinate,  and  who  lacked  the  serener  moral 
grandeur  of  Garrison. 


CHAPTER  VI 

A  KIFT  WITHIN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE 

BY  December,  1835,  Garrison  had  read  William 
Ellery  Channing's  Essay  on  Slavery,  wliicli  lie  found 
"an  inflated,  inconsistent  and  slanderous  produc 
tion.  "  It  was  not  in  accord  with  the  Abolitionist 
character  to  welcome  such  a  book — the  earnest  work 
of  an  absolutely  sincere,  if  emotionally  cold  man 
who  had  gone  as  far  as  he  could  in  a  radical  direc 
tion  without  parting  with  his  sense  of  fairness  and 
discrimination.  The  Eev.  Amos  A.  Phelps  was 
for  belaboring  all  "  go-betweenities  "  of  this  kind. 
"Every  such  man  who  comes  out  should  be  re 
viewed  without  respect  of  his  person,  and  when  he 
is  naked  let  his  nakedness  be  made  visible. "  De 
manding  complete  surrender  on  the  part  of  all  who 
differed  or  even  varied  from  the  impeccable  faith, 
it  was  natural  that  Garrison  himself  should  find  that 
the  "sole  excellencies"  of  the  Essay  were  "its 
moral  plagiarisms  from  the  writings  of  Abolition 
ists."  He  pressed  with  unusual  severity  his  hard 
doctrine  of  implicit  allegiance  when  he  chose  to 
decry  this  book  by  the  serene  Channing,  who  had 
been  impelled  to  his  task  by  reading  Mrs.  Lydia 
Maria  Child's  Appeal  in  Favor  of  That  Class  of 
Americans  Called  Africans,  as  able  in  argument 
as  uninviting  in  truth,  and  one  of  the  most 


A  BIFT  IN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE      143 

significant  of  the  earlier  propagandist  utterances. 
Every  convert,  every  one  who  so  much  as  wavered 
from  the  right  side,  must,  in  Garrison's  rigid 
doctrines,  come  under  a  sort  of  moral  harrow,  until 
he  was  rid  of  every  suspicion  of  heresy.  Chauning 
was  mentally,  morally,  spiritually,  physically  in 
capable  of  extremism ;  and,  it  must  be  admitted, 
that  there  certainly  were  passages  and  arguments 
in  his  book  far  too  conciliatory  toward  that  common 
adversary  of  all  humanitarianism — the  slaveholder. 
Even  John  Quincy  Adams  speaks  of  several  chapters 
as  having  "a  very  Jesuitical  complexion. " 

Within  a  few  months  after  Garrison's  refusal  to 
welcome  Channing  as  one  whose  face  was  turned 
toward  the  morning,  they  met  at  a  hearing  of  the 
committee  appointed  by  the  Massachusetts  legisla 
ture  to  look  into  the  requests  of  various  Southern 
states  that  efforts  be  made  to  repress  the  Abolitionists. 
These  requests  meant  nothing  less  than  an  attack 
on  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press  and  called 
forth,  at  the  State  House,  an  attendance  of  per 
sons  not  otherwise  in  complete  accord.  The  two 
men  shook  hands,  although  Dr.  Channiug  was 
not  wholly  sure  that  it  was  Garrison  whom  he 
was  meeting.  But  the  incident  prompted  the 
often-quoted  remark  made  by  Mrs.  Maria  Weston 
Chapman  that  "  Eighteousness  and  Peace  have 
kissed  each  other."  The  following  Sunday  Gar 
rison  went  to  hear  Channing  preach  and  found 
his  sermon  "  full  of  beauty  and  power."  It  was 
probably  on  this  occasion  that  he  occupied  a  pew 
belonging  to  the  ancle  of  that  fine  but  most 


144         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

resolute  New  England  radical — Colonel  Thomas 
Wentworth  Higginson.  He  was  notified  indirectly 
the  next  day  that  the  hospitality  of  the  pew  could 
be  his  no  longer.  Thus  began  and  soon  terminated 
the  personal  relations  between  Garrison  and  Chan- 
uing. 

Miss  Harriet  Martineau,  whose  Abolitionism  can 
not  be  impeached,  reveals  in  her  Autobiography  a 
Dr.  Channiug,  staunch  in  his  friendliness  and 
courtesy  to  her  at  this  time,  even  after  she  had  had 
the  audacity  to  attend  and  speak  at  a  meeting  held 
in  the  house  of  Francis  Jackson.  Such  an  act  on 
the  part  of  one  who,  like  Thompson,  was  a  "  for 
eigner,"  put  this  able  and  energetic  woman  on 
record,  and  she  had  to  pay  the  full  social  penalty 
for  her  temerity,  but  Channiug  was  loyal  through 
out.  It  is  impossible  now  to  withhold  the  judgment 
that  on  such  occasions  there  were  committed  firmly 
to  the  Abolition  cause  minds  more  open  to  chari 
table  sentiments  than  that  of  the  leader,  and  that 
Miss  Martiueau  was  one  of  them.  The  fiery  zeal  of 
the  enthusiast  must  be  the  excuse  for  his  occasion 
ally  intolerant  spirit. 

Among  the  speakers  at  the  legislative  hearing 
was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  Follen,  who  by  this  time 
had  lost,  through  non-renewal,  his  professorship  of 
the  German  Language  and  Literature  at  Harvard 
College,  on  account  of  his  humanitarian  practices.1 

1  Pollen,  friend  of  Korner,  the  poet  of  German  patriotism,  had 
been  proscribed  for  his  liberal  opinions  at  the  University  of 
Jeua  and  compelled  for  the  same  reason  to  give  up  his  professor 
ship  of  civil  law  at  Basle.  He  came  to  America  in  1824. 
After  hia  withdrawal  from  Harvard,  he  went  to  a  Unitarian 


A  EIFT  IN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE     145 

Using  the  same  freedom  of  speech  that  he  went  to 
the  hearing  to  defend,  Folleu  was  interrupted  by 
the  chairman,  George  Lunt,  who  is  remembered,  if 
remembered  at  all  aside  from  his  uncommon  literary 
merits,  as  a  notable  "Hunker"  of  those  days. 
Others  not  identified  with  Abolitionists  were  found 
to  protest  strongly  at  any  proposed  gag  against  free 
speech,  and  finally,  after  several  stormy  hearings, 
the  committee  submitted  a  report,  which  was  more 
full  of  disapproval  than  denunciation  of  the  anti- 
slavery  excitement,  and  was  not  adopted.  The 
lines  in  Massachusetts  were  not  yet  drawn  sharply 
enough  to  make  an  open  attack  on  her  ancient 
prerogatives  successful.  Mr.  Garrison,  often  a  good 
tactician,  did  not  on  this  occasion  thrust  himself 
too  much  to  the  front,  but  in  his  closing  remarks  he 
used  the  forceful  argument  that  he  really  had  no 
country  ;  that  he  was  "excluded  by  a  bloody  pro 
scription  from  one-half  of  the  national  territory"  ; 
and  that  in  effect  the  Union  was  even  then  "vir 
tually  dissolved." 

Meanwhile  there  had  arisen  thus  early  in  the  his 
tory  of  this  rapidly  advancing  crusade  a  proposal, 
hitherto  mentioned,  which  was  encouraged  by  Presi 
dent  Jackson  in  his  message  of  December,  1835. 
This  was  nothing  less  than  a  movement  to  prevent 
the  use  of  the  national  postal  service  for  the  pur- 
pastorate  in  New  York  City,  which  he  held  for  two  years  when 
he  again  suffered  for  his  principles  through  a  severance  of  his 
relations  with  this  congregation.  He  perished,  with  many 
others,  by  the  burning  of  the  steamer  Lexington  on  January  13, 
1840.  Every  Unitarian  church  in  Boston  refused  the  use  of  its 
edifice  for  holding  services  in  honor  of  Dr.  Follen. 


146          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

pose  of  sending  printed  material  hostile  to  the  in 
stitution  of  slavery  to  those  portions  of  the  country 
where  the  institution  flourished.  It  is  most  difficult 
for  minds  fully  accustomed  to  the  conception  of 
this  government  as  a  concrete,  definite,  and  in- 
separate  whole,  to  understand  how  such  a  proposal 
could  ever  have  been  put  forth  by  the  Chief  Execu 
tive  or  have  found  favor  with  any  considerable  part 
of  the  citizens.  Yet  the  South  was  unanimous  in 
its  desire  to  pass  measures,  which  at  their  face 
value  were  unconstitutional ;  it  failed  only  in  fix 
ing  on  a  concrete  plan.  In  the  North,  though  opin 
ions  were  far  more  divided,  it  is  doubtful  if  the 
constitutional  objections  were  a  whit  more  seriously 
felt  than  by  the  Southerners.  Democracy  was  still 
a  highly  individualized  sentiment,  and  expressed 
itself  in  exaggerated  modes  of  personal  freedom. 
It  was  far  from  that  stage  of  development  when  it, 
as  well  as  nobility,  was  felt  to  have  its  obligations. 
Therefore  the  suggestions,  now  seemingly  prepos 
terous,  to  exclude  matter  not  treasonable,  obscene, 
or  dishonest,  from  the  mail,  were  not  frowned  upon 
as  subversive  of  the  common  rights  of  a  free  people. 
It  was  necessary  to  fall  back  on  the  right  of  each 
state  to  determine  upon  its  internal  affairs,  with  its 
implied  power  to  exclude  whatever  was  prejudicial 
to  its  welfare.  The  South  was  not  obliged  to  be  in 
consistent  with  itself  in  taking  this  attitude,  but  the 
North  was  of  many  executive  and  legislative  minds 
in  its  attempts  to  assist  the  South  in  repressing  the 
growth  of  Abolitionism.  The  spirit  of  the  North 
may  have  been  willing  to  aid  its  anxious  Southern 


A  &IFT  IN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE     147 

brethren  in  protecting  their  established  customs, 
but  the  flesh  at  this  time  evidently  recoiled  from 
taking  an  attitude  which  could  not  have  been  main 
tained.  In  spite  of  the  frowning  hostility  of  the 
"  religious  corporations'7 — to  use  Miss  Martineau's 
cold  epithet — and  of  many  higher  institutions  of 
learning,  the  despised  Nazareues  were  growing — 
' l  at  the  rate  of  nearly  one  new  society  a  day. ' '  l  The 
country  as  a  whole  was  concerning  itself  with  affairs 
which  seemed  to  be  of  far  greater  moment — among 
them  the  beginning  of  the  agitations  to  be  ended  by 
the  annexation  of  Texas  to  bastion  the  pro-slavery 
edifice ;  while  the  anti-slavery  enthusiasts,  still  few 
but  hopefully  gaining  in  numbers,  fought  as  skir 
mishers  over  matters  which  seemed  of  relatively 
small  importance,  but  which  had  the  quality  to  an 
noy.  Their  strongest  strategic  move,  at  present  as 
for  some  time  past,  was  the  continuous  introduction 
of  petitions  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia.  It  was  fortunate  for  these  Aboli 
tionists  that  their  contention  that  the  District  should 
be  rid  of  its  shameful  burden  had  a  semblance  of 
reason,  even  in  the  minds  of  those  indifferent  to 
larger  aspects. 

The  late  Professor  Sumner,  in  his  recent  work  on 
Folkways*  holds  with  his  usual  force  that  moral 
enthusiasm  such  as  that  displayed  for  thirty  years 
before  the  outbreak  of  strife  does  not  determine  or 
occasion  great  political  alterations.  "  The  human 
itarians  of  the  nineteenth  century/7  says  Professor 
Sumner,  "  did  not  settle  anything.  .  .  .  The  in- 

1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  79.  'Folkways,  pp.  306,  307. 


148          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKRISON 

terests  normally  control  life.  It  is  not  right  [why 
does  he  say  i  right '  ?]  that  ethical  generalizations 
should  get  dogmatic  authority  and  be  made  the 
rule  of  life."  However  interesting,  academically, 
such  a  thesis  will  always  be,  there  is  still  some 
reason  to  believe  that  the  Abolitionists  have  always 
supposed  that  they  did  effect  something  and  that 
they  were  animated  by  moral  forces,  and  none  more 
so  than  Garrison.  The  anti-slavery  people  of  every 
shade  and  variation  at  least  had  convictions.  A 
fire,  once  kindled,  does  not  readily  stay  in  one  spot, 
and  so  it  soon  fell  out  that  even  politicians  felt  the 
heat  and  then  the  blaze  of  this  consuming  problem. 
Some  few  were  favorably  warmed  by  it  and  began 
to  come  under  conviction,  bat  the  time  was  not  yet 
ripe  for  politicians  to  be  affected  except  by  the  usual 
motives  of  expediency.  Several  parties  were  to  be 
born  only  to  die  before  the  cause  became  so  strong 
that  it  could  say  to  men  in  public  life  that  they 
must  definitely  declare  their  opinions  or  prepare  to 
meet  the  fate  of  the  indecisive.  For  the  present 
a  regardful  timidity  kept  the  doubtful  or  the  indif 
ferent  on  good  terms  with  the  South.  It  was  not 
yet  necessary  for  them  to  cringe.  Still  it  can  be 
fairly  said  that  slavery  by  this  time  was  morally 
abhorrent  to  such  men  as  Edward  Everett,  however 
cautious  their  words  and  actions. 

During  a  large  part  of  the  year  1836  Garrison 
was  away  from  Boston,  although  the  editorial  work 
on  the  Liberator  went  on,  even  if  not  with  the  cus 
tomary  regularity.  He  was  far  from  well  and  still 
suffered  from  the  strain  put  upon  him  nervously  by 


A  EIFT  IN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE     149 

his  recent  exciting  experiences.  He  loosed  his  hold 
on  the  editorial  reins  but  did  not  let  them  drop. 
Knapp  in  1835  had  become  the  sole  publisher  and 
the  partnership  was  dissolved,  Charles  Burleigh  fill 
ing  as  well  as  he  could  Garrison's  place.  Early  in 
the  new  year  we  find  the  absent  editor  urging  that 
"  the  debates  in  Congress  upon  the  petitions  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  "  be 
given  the  first  place  and  that  "all  official  documents 
in  opposition  to  our  cause  "  be  published  instanter.1 
This  was  the  instinct  of  a  good  journalist,  yet  it 
shows  that  the  writer,  while  professing  to  take  no 
part  in  political  strife,  was  not  slow  to  profit  by  the 
importance  of  it  to  his  cause. 

Garrison's  ill  health  was  reflected  in  his  letters, 
which  at  times  are  exceptionally  bitter.  Of  the 
people  of  Boston,  when  the  Massachusetts  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  successor  to  the  New  England 
Society,  had  just  met  with  sixteen  refusals  of  halls 
or  churches  in  which  to  hold  its  annual  meeting,  he 
says,  "They  are  liars  and  the  truth  is  not  in  them." 
In  spite  of  his  denunciation  of  the  "  Nero 
McDuffie"  and  the  "Domitiau  Marcy,"  he  thinks 
that  "  we  ought  to  be  more  tender  of  the  South,"  in 
view  of  the  conduct  of  this  "hypocritical  and 
callous-hearted  city." 

The  cause  this  year  received  from  Gerrit  Smith, 
who  had  left  the  Colonization  and  joined  the  Aboli 
tion  movement,  a  gift  of  one  thousand  dollars,  but 
the  benefaction  did  not  prevent  Garrison  from  find 
ing  something  disingenuous  in  the  convert's  manner 
1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  85. 


150         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISOK 

of  leaving  his  early  faith.  Smith,  with  his  usual 
broad  temper,  did  not  take  such  rebuffs  hardly. 
He  even  referred  lightly  to  his  master  as  having 
"  boxed  his  ears,"  nor  did  he  at  that  time  restrain 
his  hand  from  helping  out  the  finances  of  the 
Liberator.  There  were  Abolitionists  more  denunci 
atory  and  reckless  of  speech  than  their  leader  and 
certainly,  according  to  the  standard  of  the  age, 
some  of  them  were  held  to  be  more  blasphemous  ; 
but  none  had  a  greater  gift  for  being  thoroughly 
irritating  when  principle  was  at  stake.  Telling  the 
exact  truth  as  regards  Laodicean  friend  or  bitter 
foe,  was  more  than  a  passion  with  Garrison  :  it  was 
almost  a  frenzy ;  no  less  so  when  his  utterances 
were  made  with  great  calmness  and  measured  cal 
culation.  The  small-minded  were  naturally  the 
more  embittered — while  the  larger  spirits,  such  as 
Gerrit  Smith  and  Dr.  Channing,  bore  Garrison's 
censures  with  fine  magnanimity.  It  seems  probable 
that,  in  spite  of  his  bold  speech,  Garrison's  cause 
throve  at  times,  because  of  the  balanced  character 
of  some  who  were  not  so  ready  to  follow  as  to  listen 
and  digest.  His  determination  to  thresh  out 
every  particle  of  chaff  and  leave  only  the  pure 
grain,  and  to  allow  no  man  or  woman  to  be  an  ally 
without  implicit  acceptance  of  every  tenet,  savored 
more  of  military  than  of  political  method.  In  no 
case  did  Garrison  apply  his  policy — if  anything  so 
devoid  of  tact  or  compromise  can  be  called  policy 
—with  more  hardihood  than  in  the  attitude  he  took 
toward  Dr.  Channiug's  book. 
Although  Garrison  visited  Boston  to  appear  be- 


A  EIFT  IN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE     151 

fore  the  previously  mentioned  joint  committee 
(known  as  the  Luut  Committee)  of  the  Massachusetts 
legislature,  he  did  not  actually  take  up  his  residence 
again  in  Boston  until  September,  1836.  Earlier 
in  this  year  he  had  interested  himself  in  attacking 
Dr.  Lyman  Beecher's  recent  plea  for  a  better  pres 
ervation  of  the  Sabbath.  "  His  [Garrison's]  central 
idea  had  been  to  rebuke  Dr.  Beecher  for  being  so 
strenuous  in  behalf  of  the  fourth  commandment, 
while  giving  his  protecting  influence  to  slavery, 
which  annihilated  the  whole  decalogue,  and  ex 
cluded  two  and  a  half  millions  of  his  countrymen 
from  all  the  benefits  of  the  Sabbath. "  l  Here  is 
found  the  early  blossoming  of  a  new  reform  on  his 
already  fecund  radicalism.  While  meaning  to 
assail  Beecher' s  heterodoxy  on  the  anti-slavery 
question,  he  commits  himself  to  the  utterance  that 
he  is  not  in  favor  of  imposing  punishment  for 
violations  of  a  formal  keeping  of  the  Sabbath,  or 
of  enforcing  its  observance.  Stiff  opposition  to 
such  a  latitu dinar ian  view  was  not  slow  in  coming. 
Small  as  any  personal  view  on  this  matter  seems 
to-day,  it  was  one  of  the  several  factors  which, 
rapidly  grafting  themselves  on  Garrison's  body  of 
ideas,  universal  reformer  as  he  really  was,  were 
very  soon  to  make  trouble  for  him  and  to  force 
a  schism  in  the  one  cause  to  which  his  life  was  most 
devoted.  A  losing  cause  had  no  terrors  for  Garri 
son  and  although  he  recognized  that  his  lax 
Sabbatical  views  were  soon  to  cost  the  Liberator 
many  subscribers,  he  found  occasion  to  say  to  a 
1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  108, 


152          WILLIAM  LLOYD  G  AKKISON 

friend  :  "I  am  forced  to  believe  that,  as  it  respects 
the  greater  portion  of  professing  Christians  in  the 
laud,  Christ  has  died  in  vain."  Surely  less  than 
ten  years  of  active  humanitarian  service  had 
mightily  changed  the  rather  priggish  young  New- 
buryport  printer,  full  of  religion  and  sometimes 
cant,  into  a  fighter  of  shams,  robust  enough  to  have 
suited  even  Thomas  Carry le,  the  American  edition 
of  whose  Sartor  Resartns,  by  the  way,  appeared  at 
this  very  time. 

In  the  fall  of  this  year,  1836,  he  was  present  at 
an  important  meeting  in  New  York  of  some  thirty 
of  the  seventy  agents  employed  to  spread  the  prop 
aganda — among  them  Theodore  D.  Weld,  Charles 
Stuart,  assailant  in  England  of  the  American 
Colonization  Society,  and  Eev.  Beriah  Green. 
Weld  had  left  Lane  Seminary  for  conscience7  sake, 
and  become  one  of  Garrison's  closest  followers, 
differing  only  from  him,  as  did  Whit  tier,  in  an 
expressed  wish  not  to  intrude  the  woman  question 
into  the  more  immediate  problem. 

At  the  close  of  this  year  Garrison  submitted  him 
self  incognito  to  a  phrenological  examination  at 
the  hands  of  one  of  the  then  famous  Fowlers. 
With  characteristic  boldness  the  Garrisons  have 
published  the  results  of  this  survey  of  their  father's 
mental  and  moral  state.  Some  of  the  details  are 
curious  and  perhaps  valuable,  for  Garrison's 
peculiarities  must  be  fairly  considered  in  a  general 
estimate  of  him  as  a  man  of  genius.  According  to 
the  test  he  was  secretive,  obstinate  and  of  large 
self-esteem.  "His  mind  always  expands  on  sub- 


A  EIFT  IN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE     153 

jects  the  Icmger  he  dwells  on  them — the  more  he 
says,  the  more  he  has  to  say."  "He  always  wants 
the  reiiis  iii  his  own  hands/'  "He  never  com 
promises  to  secure  the  approbation  of  others,  but 
acts  totally  regardless  of  what  others  may  think  or 
say."  A  multitude  of  other  qualities,  in  the  main 
strong  and  good,  were  disclosed,  but  the  weaknesses 
of  his  vital  make-up  were  also  brought  out  in  a 
somewhat  astonishing  way.  It  is  difficult,  however, 
to  believe  that  Fowler  had  no  previous  knowledge 
of  his  sitter. 

Early  in  the  year  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery 
Society  assumed  the  burden  of  the  Liberator,  the 
condition  of  which  was  still  languishing.  The 
enthusiasm  of  local  Abolitionists  was  called  upon 
to  sustain  the  society's  determination  to  edit  and 
print  a  paper  in  no  sense  its  official  organ.  In 
March  the  Liberator  was  enlarged  to  meet  the  pres 
sure  of  constantly  increasing  anti-slavery  news, 
and  "by  mid-summer  the  subscribers  numbered 
some  three  thousand."  It  is  difficult  to  conceive 
a  loftier  ideal  than  that  set  by  Garrison  for  the 
conduct  of  his  paper.  He  insisted  upon  free  dis 
cussion  from  all  sides  in  its  pages.  He  would  not 
in  auy  way  come  under  the  control  of  the  friendly 
society  which  assumed  a  burden  he  could  not  carry, 
and  he  was  unwilling  to  conflict  with  the  larger 
endeavors  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society. 

A  word  must  be  said  here  of  the  once  famous 
"  Eefuge  of  Oppression,"  a  department  of  the 
Liberator,  called  in  the  first  volume  the  "Slavery 
Eecord,"  and  into  which  Garrison  ironically 


154          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

dumped  about  everything  he  could  find  hostile  to 
his  cause,  "some  of  the  choicest  specimens  of  anti- 
Abolition  morality,  decency,  logic  and  humanity— 
generally  without  note  or  comment. "  It  was  a 
telling  example  of  his  strong  journalistic  keenness 
and  his  humorous  facility  for  turning  the  tables  on 
his  opponents  by  a  show  of  fair-mindedness  to  which 
they  could  present  not  the  slightest  objection  with 
out  raising  a  laugh  against  themselves.  The  Rev. 
Samuel  Osgood,  of  Springfield,  Mass.,  who  was 
conservative  on  the  Sabbath  question,  but  a  good 
anti-slavery  man  withal,  once  playfully  said,  when 
he  ventured  to  make  some  slight  opposition,  that 
he  was  in  "  hourly  expectation  of  being  put  into 
the  '  Refuge  of  Oppression.'  "  It  proved  to  be  a 
veritable  pit  for  Garrison's  enemies,  but  it  was  of 
their  own  digging. 

In  the  spring  both  branches  of  the  Massachusetts 
legislature  adopted  resolutions  in  favor  of  the  right 
of  petition, — a  right  just  denied,  on  January,  1837, 
by  the  national  House  of  Representatives.  This 
step  gave  Garrison  the  keenest  satisfaction,  for  he 
was  never  averse  to  political  action  which  helped 
his  cause,  although  during  -this  very  year,  at  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  he  submitted  a  resolution  to  the  effect,  in 
part,  that  Abolitionists  ought  not  to  attach  them 
selves  as  such  to  any  party. 

A  powerful  ally  and  friend,  who  was  to  be  con 
tinuously  faithful  to  Garrison  and  Garrisoniauism, 
now  first  appeared  on  the  scene  in  the  person  of 
Wendell  Phillips,  a  six  years'  graduate  of  Harvard 


A  EIFT  IN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE     155 

College,  a  lawyer  by  profession,  the  sou  of  Boston's 
first  mayor,  and  endowed  with  many  graces,  per 
sonal  and  social.  So  completely  did  he  represent 
the  Boston  type  of  cultivated  gentlemen  of  the  period 
that  it  seems  hardly  possible  to  exclude  him  from 
the  respectable  yet  agitated  group  which  less  than 
a  year  and  a  half  before  this  had  participated  in  or 
did  nothing  to  quell  the  October  mob  eager  for 
Garrison's  life  or  suppression.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  about  the  courage  displayed  by  this  young 
Phillips,  who  was  representative  of  all  that  was 
reputable  in  Boston  and  cultivated  and  elegant  in 
Harvard  College,  when  he  crossed  his  social  Eubicon, 
insignificant  as  that  stream  may  appear  in  com 
parison  with  the  totality  of  things.  Something 
must  be  said  a  little  farther  on  of  him  and  of  his 
break  with  the  traditions  that  hold  most  men  fast. 
Just  now  the  feeling  in  Boston  was  so  strongly 
against  this  disturbing  radicalism  that  this  very 
year  when  Phillips  first  "came  out,"  no  meeting 
house  could  be  secured  for  the  annual  gathering  of 
the  Massachusetts  Society  and  only  three  were  open 
to  the  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Convention. 
Even  halls  for  public  use  of  sufficient  size  were 
closed,  although,  as  Garrison  said  with  his  usual 
sting,  there  was  no  public  hall  which  could  not 
abe  occupied  by  jugglers,  mountebanks,  ballad- 
singers,  rope-dancers,  religious  impostors,  etc.,  etc., 
as  they  shall  wish  to  hire." 

For  the  sake  of  his  family,  Garrison  went  to 
Brooklyn,  Conn.,  in  June  for  some  weeks,  leaving 
Oliver  Johnson  as  acting  editor,  but  returned  about 


156          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

the  first  of  September.  Meanwhile  the  beginnings 
of  a  serious  crisis  had  arisen  in  the  anti-slavery 
ranks,  from  which  ultimately  a  schism  resulted. 

Brooks  Adams  in  his  unsparing  attack  on  the 
early  hierarchy — u  The  Emancipation  of  Massa 
chusetts1" — has  shown  that  the  clergy  bitterly 
fought  all  encroachments  against  their  power. 
That  this  attitude  of  self-defense,  not  to  say  spir 
itual  arrogance,  was  by  no  means  dead  in  the  late 
thirties  of  the  nineteenth  century  on  the*  same  battle 
ground  where  the  Mathers  had  waged  fierce  warfare 
a  century  and  a  half  earlier,  appears  plainly  enough 
in  the  fairly  well  concerted  opposition  which  now 
arose  against  the  extreme  left  of  the  Abolitionist 
movement.  Manners  were  gentler,  no  doubt,  and 
perhaps  more  sly.  But  the  determination  to  main 
tain  an  unbroken  front  was  then  as  strong  as  ever. 

Without  entering  minutely  into  the  causes  of  this 
attempted  and  finally  successful  disruption  of  the 
several  elements  of  Abolitionism,  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  the  trouble  mainly  began  with  the  forging 
of  a  rather  mild  thunderbolt  by  the  hand  of  the 
Rev.  Nehemiah  Adams,  more  celebrated  nearly 
twenty  years  later  for  his  once  famous  "South-side 
View  of  Slavery,"  which  may  now  be  rated  as  one 
of  the  "  humors  of  the  campaign  "  then  raging.  In 
a  pastoral  letter  written  by  him  but  issued  by  the 
General  Association  of  Massachusetts,  he  sought  in 
gentlest  manner  to  preserve  the  Orthodox  Con 
gregational  pulpit  intact  from  the  disturbing  ques 
tions  of  the  day  so  likely  to  impair  the  direct  object 
of  the  ministry,  the  inculcation  of  personal  religion. 


A  RIFT  IX  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE     157 

But  Mr.  Adams  went  farther  and  touched  upon  a 
question  which  generally  creates  trouble  whenever 
it  is  set  going.  Starting  with  a  large  and  vapid 
theorem  that  ' i  the  power  of  woman  is  in  her  de 
pendence,  "  he  proceeded  rapidly  to  reprove  them 
who  "  countenance  any  of  that  sex  who  so  far  forget 
themselves  as  to  itinerate  in  the  character  of  public 
lecturers  and  teachers."  Trouble  in  this  world  has 
often  centred  about  a  woman.  In  this  instance, 
two  women,  the  Misses  Sarah  and  Angelina 
Grimke,  were  the  immediate  cause  of  the  good  Mr. 
Adams's  alarm,  although  he  did  not  even  pay  them 
the  small  distinction  of  admitting  their  existence  in 
his  strictures.  Both  were  born  in  Charleston,  S.  C., 
and  had  known  and  learned  to  hate  slavery  at  first 
hand.  They  were  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  and 
must  be  accounted  among  the  staunchest  of  Gar 
rison's  adherents.  The  iullueuce  of  their  connec 
tion  with  the  earliest  movements  of  the  woman 
suffrage  cause  in  this  country  can  hardly  be  over 
estimated.  Contrary  to  all  Pauline  injunctions, 
they  began,  as  young  women,  to  speak  in  Aboli 
tion  meetings,  and  the  pastoral  letter  is  sufficient 
evidence  that  the  impression  made  by  them  on  the 
public  was  growing  too  strong  to  suit  a  conservative 
ecclesiastical  taste.  It  was  Sarah  Grirnke  who  had 
recently  declared  that  "although  brought  up  in  the 
midst  of  slavery,  and  having  converse  with  hun 
dreds  of  well-treated  slaves,  she  has  never  found 
one  who  did  not  wish  to  be  free."  Late  in  the  year 
1836,  the  sisters  had  addressed  the  convention  of 
Vol.  II,  p.  117. 


158          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

anti-slavery  delegates  held  in  New  York,  and  by 
the  middle  of  the  next  year  were  speaking  in 
churches  and  elsewhere  in  Massachusetts.  Mist 
Angelina  Grimke  had  also  answered  Catherine 
Beecher  by  a  letter,  first  printed  in  the  Liberator 
and  later  in  a  pamphlet,  which  the  brothers  Garri 
son  assert  positively  to  have  been  the  "beginning 
of  the  woman's  rights  agitation  in  America."  !  Ii. 
was  indeed  time  that  something  pastoral  was  done 
for  Sarah  Grimke  claimed,  not  as  a  Quakeress,  bu ; 
as  a  woman,  the  right  to  preach. 

A  few  weeks  later  five  Massachusetts  ministers 
of  the  Gospel  sent  the  first  shot  across  Garrison'  n 
bow,  by  issuing  an  "Appeal  of  Clerical  Aboli 
tionists,"  better  known  as  the  "  Clerical  Appeal,'' 
in  which,  during  the  absence  of  its  editor,  they 
laid  bare  the  shortcomings  of  the  Liberator,  asserting 
that  its  excessive  language  and  imperious  demands, 
and  the  diversion  of  contributions  from  religious 
objects  into  anti-slavery  channels,  were  the  means 
of  preventing  "many  worthy  men  from  appearing 
in  favor  of  immediate  emancipation."  Oliver  John 
son,  as  acting  editor,  was  brisk  to  reply  ;  the  Rev. 
Amos  A.  Phelps,  general  agent  for  the  Massachu 
setts  Society,  took  up  the  cudgels,  and  so  did  Gar 
rison  from  Brooklyn,  in  defense  of  Johnson,  who 
was  the  definite  person  attacked,  and  in  defiance  of 
the  "sanctimonious  pretensions  of  the  great  mass 
of  the  clergy  in  our  land."  The  warning  shot  was 
quickly  answered  and  Garrison  had  defied  the 
American  clergy  as  such.  His  opponents,  how- 

1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  134. 


A  RIFT  IN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE     159 

ever,  still  wavered  ;  those  who  saw  the  battle  from 
a  distance  were  not  slow  to  rejoice  over  such  dissen 
sion.  From  certain  signers  in  Andover  Theological 
Seminary  came  at  once  another  "  Appeal,"  specify 
ing  charges  of  a  more  general  nature. 

Garrison  was  always  so  ready  to  make  forcible 
rejoinders,  and  the  ''moment  any  one,  even  a  real 
friend,  has  put  a  foot  out  of  the  traces,"  to  turn 
fiercely  upon  him  as  a  real  foe — so  at  least  it  was 
charged — that  it  is  uncertain  how  keenly  he  felt  the 
beginning  of  what  proved  to  be  a  serious  defection. 
He  did,  however,  show  some  sensitiveness  at  the  pub 
lication  of  the  various  "  Appeals"  in  the  New  Eng 
land  Spectator  rather  than  in  the  Liberator.  Follow 
ing  the  Andover  message,  there  soon  appeared  a  sec 
ond  "Clerical  Appeal"  from  the  originators  of  the 
first,  in  which  objection  was  offered  to  the  Liberator as 
the  official  organ  of  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  an  organization  made  up,  as  it  certainly 
was  in  part,  of  those  who  did  not  and  could  not 
relish  that  paper's  attack  on  their  religious  senti 
ments.  The  reply  of  the  society,  through  its  board 
of  managers,  showed  clearly  that  no  disposition  was 
yet  manifest  to  distrain  Garrison  or  any  one  else  as 
an  individual  from  the  expression  of  his  own  views. 
Still  another  "  Appeal  "  pushed  the  contention  into 
yet  narrower  limits  and  really  brought  this  Concio 
ad  clerum  to  an  end,  so  far  as  it  affected  the 
Liberator  or  its  editor.  Lewis  Tappan,  however, 
in  New  York  thought  that  the  relations  between  the 
Massachusetts  Society  and  its  organ  did  give  an  op 
portunity  for  hostile  criticism.  In  August,  1837, 


160          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GA.KK1SON 

Garrison  wrote  that  the  Liberator  in  case  of  a  dis- 
junctiou  could  live  only  through  that  year.  Had 
the  paper  at  this  time  been  forced  to  separate  itself 
entirely  from  all  affiliations,  it  is  probable  that  it 
would  have  embraced  universal  reform,  and  have 
come  to  grief.  As  it  was,  the  assistance  which  it 
received  in  the  cause  of  Abolition  was  derived 
mainly  from  persons  of  substance  interested  in  that 
one  cause.  The  advocates  of  "holy  reform,"  to  use 
Garrison's  phrase,  were  not  poor  in  spirit  but  were 
in  no  condition  to  subsidize  a  sinking  newspaper. 
The  American  Society  meanwhile  kept  a  straight 
course  toward  the  polar  star— the  emancipation  of 
the  slaves.  Its  organ,  the  Emancipator,  made  no 
reference  to  the  various  "  Appeals"  issuing  in  Mas 
sachusetts  and  did  not  take  up  the  troubles  of  Gar 
rison  on  one  side  or  of  the  disturbed  evangelicals  on 
the  other.  The  society  also  found  it  necessary  to 
disclaim  connection  with  persons  seeking  to  pro 
mote  principles  other  than  those  set  forth  in  its  own 
declaration.  Before  the  year  was  out  Henry  Clarke 
Wright  was  dismissed  by  the  executive  committee, 
on  account  of  his  peace  and  "no  government  "  doc 
trines,  and  the  Griinke  sisters  were  evidently  under 
official  displeasure  for  their  mixing  up  Abolitionism 
and  woman's  rights  in  a  disturbing  fashion. 

If  Garrison  did  not  hesitate  to  remonstrate  forci 
bly  with  his  friends  for  presuming  to  differ  with 
him,  it  is  also  true  that  occasionally  they  would 
give  him  a  taste  of  his  own  sharp  medicine,  which, 
however,  they  usually  diluted  with  a  Christian  for 
bearance  and  delicacy.  James  G.  JBiruey,  as  loyal 


A  EIFT  IN  THE  ABOLITION  LUTE     161 

to  the  cause  as  any  man  could  be,  was  displeased 
with  Garrison's  rejoinders  to  the  "Appeals,"  and 
according  to  Garrison's  admission,  Birney's  "  for 
mer  confidence  in  his  judgment  and  prudence  was 
shaken.-'  Lewis  Tappau,  with  a  sanity  of  utter 
ance  foreign  to  the  usual  modes  of  anti-slavery  dis 
cussion,  reasoned  with  Garrison,  told  hint  that  the 
cause  could  not  afford  to  "drive  away,  or  i knock 
in  the  head'  friends  who  are  substantially  right," 
and  assured  him  that  the  troubles  in  Massachusetts 
were  "unknown  elsewhere."  But  Garrison  did  not 
then  or  ever  have  much  toleration  for  those  who 
were  "substantially  right."  It  was  in  the  nature 
of  the  man,  as  it  is  in  practically  all  dominant  char 
acters,  to  want  submission  as  well  as  adherence,  and 
this  in  spite  of  his  iterated  statements  that  the  one 
demand  to  be  made  on  a  member  of  an  anti-slavery 
society  was  a  belief  in  the  abolition  of  American 
slavery.  To  him  the  course  of  the  American  Soci 
ety  and  its  organ  was  "criminal  and  extraordi 
nary,"  and  he  raised  his  cries  of  a  wounded  man 
still  louder.  Even  a  gentle  letter  from  Elizur 
Wright,  Jr.,  failed  to  move  him  except  to  more 
words.  A  paradoxical  English  writer  has  recently 
said  that  nothing  will  really  drive  one  to  insanity 
except  logic.  Garrison  knew  that  he  was  right  and 
he  could  always  prove  it  from  his  own  premises  and 
to  his  own  satisfaction.  Yet,  though  he  had  reason 
on  his  side,  hard  and  sure,  he  was  lacking  in  sweet 
reasonableness — not  in  all  things,  but  in  the  es 
sentials,  and  often  failed  to  see  the  merits  of  ami 
ability,  gentleness,  and  the  persuasive  attitude.  If 


162         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

the  tolerance  shown  by  others  failed  to  please  him, 
so  did  his  relentless  logical  deductions  from  pre 
mises  conceivably  inadmissible,  at  times  fail  to  per 
suade  his  equals  in  ability  and  moral  energy.  But 
his  oneness  of  character  seems  never  to  have  been 
doubted,  and  this  did  the  most  to  pull  him  through 
the  prodigious  task  he  had  set  before  himself. 
Seldom  was  he  disingenuous,  but  when,  after  re 
ceiving  such  letters  from  Wright,  who  feared  "spir 
itual  Quixotism "  for  his  friend,  and  from  Lewis 
Tappan,  he  asked  in  the  Liberator  what  the  silence 
of  the  Emancipator  "meant,77  he  put  the  question 
in  full  knowledge  of  just  exactly  what  it  did  mean 
—that  his  friends  disapproved  of  his  stopping  the 
advance  of  a  great  reform  to  skirmish  with  a  few 
malcontents. 

At  the  meeting  in  October  of  the  Massachusetts 
Society  at  Worcester,  Garrison  seemed  to  have  suf 
fered  no  loss  of  his  local  supremacy,  but  the 
Spectator,  now  owned  by  John  Gulliver,  a  deacon 
under  the  Rev.  Charles  Pitch,  one  of  the  appellants, 
openly  advocated  a  new  sectarian  organization. 
Back  to  the  charge  came  Garrison  with  cries  of 
"cant77  and  "Jesuitical  whitewasher'7  ; — the  argu 
ment  fell  lower  and  lower  with  recrimination  and 
personal  self-defense.  All  that  he  seemed  to  gain 
was  an  unbroken  line  of  colored  adherents. 


CHAPTER  YII 

AN  AWAKENING  PEOPLE 

FORTUNATE  it  was  for  the  cause  and  its  protag 
onist  at  this  point  that  something  more  vital  than 
logomachy  providentially  swept  away  for  the  time 
being  all  contention  over  perfectionism,  holiness, 
clerical  hypocrisy  and  other  dissonances,  and  brought 
in,  with  tragic  message,  a  new  champion  of  Aboli 
tion — one  in  the  main  after  Garrison's  whole  heart 
— the  young,  eloquent  and  scholarly  Wendell 
Phillips.  Conservatives,  perhaps  a  little  weary 
of  holding  up  their  horror-stricken  hands  so  con 
tinually  against  Garrison,  were  to  find  in  this 
new  combatant  a  fresh  object  for  condemnation. 
Phillips  sprang  into  the  contest  at  an  eventful  mo 
ment,  when  the  whole  country  outside  the  slave 
states  had  its  first  realization  that  a  successful  con 
tinuance  of  slavery  must  involve  a  suppression  not 
only  of  free  speech,  of  the  right  of  petition,  but 
above  all  of  a  free  press.  Not  until  twenty-two 
years  later  when  John  Brown  was  hanged,  was  there 
such  a  general  and  sudden  welling  up  of  popular 
emotion  as  when  the  Eev.  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy  was 
killed  while  protecting  the  presses  on  which  was 
printed  his  Observer  in  Alton,  111.  His  story  must 
be  told,  though  briefly,  for  it  had  little  to  do  with 
Garrison's  personal  career. 


164:         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

When  Lovejoy  was  editor  of  the  St.  Louis 
Observer,  he  objected  editorially  to  the  burning 
alive  iii  1836  of  a  negro  who  had  killed  an  officer 
while  the  latter  was  trying  to  apprehend  him.  The 
office  of  this  paper  was  destroyed,  and  Lovejoy 
thereupon  moved  to  Alton,  where  his  press  was  soon 
broken  ;  in  August,  1837,  his  office  and  press  were 
again  ruined.  In  November  of  this  year  a  new 
press  arrived  and  Lovejoy' s  friends  voted  this  reso 
lution  :  "The  cause  of  human  rights,  liberty  of 
speech  and  the  press,  demand  that  the  Alton 
Observer  be  reestablished  with  its  present  editor." 
So  near  the  border,  this  was  nothing  but  rank 
defiance  to  every  shade  of  pro-slavery  sympathy, 
dangerous  to  manifest  and  difficult  to  maintain. 
Notwithstanding  this  condition  of  affairs,  however, 
the  mayor  appointed  a  special  force  to  guard  the 
property  of  the  paper,  then  in  a  warehouse.  By 
nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  seeing  no  signs  of 
trouble,  most  of  this  guard  had  left.  Soon  after  a 
gang  of  what  we  should  now  call  "hoodlums"  at 
tacked  the  warehouse  and  began  to  throw  stones 
and  to  fire  shots.  The  dozen  of  Lovejoy's  friends 
who  still  remained  returned  the  shots  and  one  of  the 
mob  was  killed.  The  building  was  then  set  011  fire, 
and  as  Lovejoy  came  out  he  was  shot  down  and 
killed ;  his  press  was  destroyed  and  thrown  into 
the  river. 

Such  are  the  merest  outlines  of  the  most  signifi 
cant  tragedy  thus  far  in  a  cause  which  up  to  this 
time  many  had  refused  to  admit  was  a  cause. 
Lovejoy,  though  bearing  the  title  of  Reverend,  was 


AN  AWAKENING  PEOPLE  165 

militant ;  lie  died  while  defending  his  own  property 
and  rights,  but  he  defied  with  deliberate  purpose  the 
violent  opinions  of  the  place  where  he  had  decided 
to  put  his  back  to  the  wall.  Garrison,  no  less  brave, 
no  less  determined,  would  not  have  met  shot  with 
shot,  but  that  did  not  prevent  him  from  mourning 
Lovejoy's  death.  He  was  willing  to  admit  that 
Lovejoy  was  a  martyr,  but  not  "a  Christian 
martyr.  He  died  like  Warren,  not  like  Stephen.7' 
Unyielding  as  ever,  though  his  own  cause  was  to 
profit  immensely  by  this  timely  taking  off,  Garri 
son  did  not  fail  to  inveigh  against  any  of  the  fol 
lowers  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  * '  resorting  to  carnal 
weapons  under  any  pretext  or  in  any  extremity 
whatever."  This  man's  consistency  was  a  baffling 
thing  to  the  worldly  minded. 

On  December  8th,  a  public  meeting  of  protest 
was  held  in  Faneuil  Hall,  Boston,  although  an 
earlier  petition,  headed  by  Dr.  William  Ellery 
Chauuing,  had  failed  to  gain  permission  to  use  this 
building,  still  sacred  to  a  Bostonian's  faith  in  free 
institutions.  To  this  meeting  Garrison  went  only  as 
a  spectator.  How  could  he  keep  away  ;  yet  how 
could  he  well  have  spoken,  a  non-resistant  in  pro 
fession,  without  dampening  an  ardor  which  he 
knew  ought  to  have  fullest  expression  ?  Even  the 
bitter  enemies  of  Garrison — and  they  still  exist — 
must  admit  that  by  his  self-effacement  on  such  an 
occasion  he  showed  excellent  taste.  His  sense  of 
humor,  too,  doubtless  told  him  how  awkward  it 
would  be  for  his  hearers — or  some  of  them — to  listen 
comfortably  to  a  man  whom  two  years  and  one 


166         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARKISON 

month  earlier  they  came  perilously  near  to  serving 
as  Lovejoy  had  just  been  served,  but  with  the 
violence  all  on  one  side. 

If  Garrison  did  not  say  anything  at  this  time, 
however,  Wendell  Phillips  did.  His  sentence  in 
reply  to  the  socially  august  and  important  James 
Trecothick  Austin,  Attorney -General  of  Massa 
chusetts,  who,  according  to  Garrison,  had,  in  a  "  vile 
and  inflammatory"  manner,  dared  to  compare  the 
Alton  rioters  with  some  of  the  cherished  idols  of 
our  Eevolutionary  days,  will  live  as  long  as  there 
are  American  schoolboys,  and  as  long  as  there  re 
mains  in  this  country  a  relish  for  the  eloquence 
that  sways  and  compels  even  when  it  does  not  con 
vince.  The  decade  which  knew  the  overwhelming 
oratory  of  Webster's  reply  to  Hayue  had  the  good 
fortune  to  hear  the  deadly,  penetrating  forcefulness 
of  the  philippic  which  closed  with  :  "For  the  senti 
ments  he  has  uttered,  on  soil  consecrated  by  the 
prayers  of  Puritans  and  the  blood  of  patriots,  the 
earth  should  have  yawned  and  swallowed  him  up  !  " 
Thus  did  Phillips  really  begin  his  career  of  unre 
mitting  radicalism  ;  and  from  this  time  on  he  drew 
upon  himself  a  measure  of  the  attack  hitherto 
reserved  for  Garrison  alone. 

Much  has  been  said  of  Phillips' s  sacrifice  of  social 
position,  but  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  he 
felt  it  keenly  or  concerned  himself  greatly  about  it. 
A  gentleman's  position  is  secure  provided  that  he 
does  not  violate  certain  established  traditions — and 
Phillips,  born  into  a  definite  social  stratum,  con 
tinued  to  the  end,  correct,  elegant,  self-possessed, 


AN  AWAKENING  PEOPLE  167 

well-bred  and  well-read.  There  was  uot  a  soul  in 
the  compact,  highly  decorous,  comfortable  Boston 
of  those  days  who  could  possibly  injure  him  except 
by  a  figurative  sticking  of  tongue  in  cheek.  It  is 
wholly  probable  that  Phillips,  like  many  another 
of  his  class  before  and  after  him,  was  tired  of  mere 
decorousuess.  He  was  a  Puritan,  a  Sam  Adams 
kind  of  man,  not  an  arbiter  elegantiarum — and  so 
found  his  way  an  easy  one  out  of  rather  meaningless 
conventional  restraints,  and  led  henceforth  a  life 
of  extraordinary  austereness  and  simplicity.  The 
habitual  note  of  exaggeration  in  all  that  he  uttered 
found  no  counterpart  in  his  dress  or  daily  habits. 
He  was  a  very  scourge  to  what  seemed  to  him 
Pharisaism  and  he  said  in  public  many  extravagant 
and  needlessly  cruel  things  which  have  served  to 
place  him,  in  the  lapse  of  time,  on  a  somewhat 
lower  pedestal  than  Garrison,  who  had  no  "  ad  van 
tages"  to  lose,  no  position  to  forfeit,  but  who  bore 
himself  loftily  at  all  times. 

At  about  this  eventful  period  the  ranks  of  Aboli 
tion  were  also  joined  definitely  by  Edmund  Quincy, 
the  compeer  of  Phillips  in  education,  social  privi 
lege,  professional  standing  and  personal  distinction. 
Unlike  Phillips,  his  ceasing  to  breathe  exclusively 
the  agreeable  atmosphere  of  a  complete  respectability 
did  not  render  him  bitter,  however  positive  in 
speech,  or  distrustful  in  attitude  toward  the  class 
into  which  he  was  born  and  from  which  he  never 
separated  with  violence.  Yet  it  cannot  be  said  of 
him  that  this  son  of  a  president  of  Harvard  Uni 
versity,  bred  on  polite  compromises  and  gracious 


168         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABBISON 

toleration,  was  a  whit  less  stern  iii  bis  judgments  or 
less  unbending  in  his  stand  for  human  rights.  He 
came  rather  deliberately  to  his  private  conviction 
that  such  extremists  as  the  Garrisoniaus,  however 
harsh  their  way  of  putting  things,  were  right  in 
principle.  James  Bussell  Lowell  says  that  Quincy 
"early  in  life  devoted  himself  deliberately  to  the 
somewhat  arduous  profession  of  gentleman/'  To 
a  man  reared  to  think  as  well  as  to  speak  re- 
strainedly,  the  transition  must  have  been  sharp  to 
his  natural  delicacy.  It  could  not  have  been  so 
easy  for  him  as  for  Phillips  to  fellowship  with  those 
whose  language  and  manners  were  almost  uncouth 
by  contrast  with  the  associations  of  his  former  life. 
If  to  lose  in  some  measure  the  warmth  of  earlier 
friendships  was  to  drink  the  waters  of  Marah, 
there  is  no  evidence  that  Quiucy  relished,  as  Phillips 
seems  to  have  relished,  the  bitter  taste. 

The  year  1837,  which  began  with  a  renewal  of 
petitions  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  was  not  to  close  without  a  sort  of 
rapprochement  between  the  younger  Adams,  old 
in  years,  but  still  young  in  moral  ardor  and  intel 
lectual  belligerency,  and  his  just  recognized  allies, 
the  Abolitionists.  Neither  side  made  any  pretense 
of  admiring  the  other,  but  it  was  again  to  the  larger 
aspects  of  anti-slavery  when  Adams  at  his  home  in 
Quincy  received  such  positive  characters  as  Birney, 
Francis  Jackson,  the  Grimkes,  Whittier,  Goodell 
and  even  Garrison  himself,  who  tells  us  that  all 
were  met  "with  respect  and  cordiality."  For  a 
man  as  particular  about  his  political  bedfellows  as 


AN  AWAKENING  PEOPLE  169 

Adams,  this  was  a  move  toward  a  better  mutual 
understanding.  But  within  a  year  or  so  later  that 
formidable  old  man  was  recording  in  his  diary  his 
unfavorable  judgments  of  Emerson,  Garrison, 
Brownson  and  other  radicals,  all  of  whom  "come 
in,  furnishing  each  some  plausible  rascality  as  an 
ingredient  for  the  bubbling  caldron  of  religion  and 
politics."  l 

With  the  pro-slavery  side  and  its  timorous 
Northern  supporters  using  every  parliamentary 
device  to  prevent  further  protesting  before  Congress 
against  the  instituted  fact  of  slavery,  the  Abolition 
ists  now  had  reason  to  feel  that  they  had  at  last 
driven  their  enemy  from  cover  and  that  they 
might  yet  have  a  chance  for  a  closer  grapple. 
Judged  strategically,  their  worst  defeat  of  a  polit 
ical  nature  was  the  recognition  at  this  time  of  the 
independence  of  Texas  (1837)  ;  but  the  Abolition 
movement  had  as  yet  entered  in  no  important  way 
the  political  field,  and  its  followers  had  good  cause 
to  rejoice.  A  tremendous  impulse  had  been  given 
to  forces  at  work  throughout  the  body  social  by 
an  organization  such  as  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society — mother  already  of  a  prolific  and  ever-in 
creasing  brood  of  subsidiary  associations, — and  by 
so  stirring  a  tragedy  as  the  Lovejoy  murder.  The 
mob  spirit  was  already  doing  more  good  by  opening 
the  eyes  of  reputable  citizens,  hitherto  closed  in 
easy  moral  repose,  than  it  could  possibly  do  harm 
by  smashing  windows,  throwing  filth,  and  other 
wise  trying  to  frighten  peaceful  but  exceedingly 

1  Memoirs  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  Vol.  X,  p.  345. 


170         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

resolute  men  and  women  who  were  sustained  by 
that  quiet  courage  of  genuine  radicalism  which 
taught  them  to  ' '  dread  the  grave  as  little  as  their 
bed.77 

Ernest  Kenan  says  somewhere  that  no  man  may 
safely  engage  in  more  than  one  reform  at  a  time, 
but  must  consecrate  and  employ  his  whole  energy 
in  a  single  moral  enterprise.  Was  Kenan  right,  or 
was  Garrison  a  universal  genius  of  philanthropy, 
covering  ethically  the  whole  human  domain  and 
ignoring  no  dark  corners  with  the  rays  of  his  holy 
zeal?  The  country  was  now  rapidly  centring  its 
attention,  outside  of  direct  political  action,  on  the 
grave  problem  which  he  had  been  foremost  in  pre 
senting,  and  Garrison  at  this  time  had  full  control 
of  the  Liberator  after  seven  years  of  more  or  less 
restraint.  Does  his  course  confirm  the  truth  of 
Kenan7 s  dictum,  or  was  his  widening  progress 
henceforth  in  no  way  to  weaken  his  now  power 
ful  influence'? 

In  spite  of  a  season  of  bodily  infirmity,  during 
which,  as  usual,  he  had  recourse  to  therapeutic 
methods,  as  little  recognized  by  the  "faculty"  ns 
his  methods  of  reform  were  recognized  by  that  por 
tion  of  society  of  which  the  medical  profession  was 
an  integral  part,  the  now  un trammeled  editor  be 
gan  to  cut  loose  from  the  one-reform  idea  and, 
"  guided  by  no  human  authority,"  make  still  more 
rapidly  for  the  open.  Proclaiming  as  fiercely  as 
ever  the  need  of  abolition  and  welcoming  all  shades 
of  opinion  to  this  "  common  ground,"  he  proposed 
to  advocate  the  cause  of  peace  and  utterly  to 


AN  AWAKENING  PEOPLE  171 

repudiate  the  principle  of  justifiable  violence,  hold 
ing  that  the  non-resistant  tenets  of  the  Quakers  did 
not  go  far  enough.  His  arguments  on  this  thesis 
are  a  strange  amalgam  of  Scriptural  language  and 
his  own  forcible  editorial  manner.  In  another,  the 
constant  and  rather  wearisome  levying  on  Holy 
Writ  would  have  been  the  veriest  cant,  but  not  in 
his  case.  When  the  fight  was  on,  Garrison  was  an 
Old  Testament  man  and  thought  and  wrote  the 
sometimes  clear  and  sometimes  cloudy  language  of 
prophecy.  There  was,  of  a  truth,  nothing  pacifica 
tory  in  this  incessant  demand  for  peace  ;  the  trumpet 
is  a  true  weapon  of  war  and  the  Garrisouian 
"clangor  tubarum"  was  strident,  though  his  theme 
was  the  bringing  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth 
as  it  is  in  heaven.  Again,  too,  he  pressed  his  de 
mand  for  the  rights  of  women  "  to  their  utmost  ex 
tent." 

We  find  him  later  in  the  year  trying  to  carry  out 
some  of  his  various  and  large  undertakings.  At 
Philadelphia,  whither  he  had  gone  to  attend  the 
Annual  Convention  of  American  Anti-Slavery 
Women,  "our  tongues,"  he  writes,  "were  as  busy 
as  our  hearts  were  warm,"  for  "Abolition,  Peace, 
Woman's  Eights,  Holiness,  were  the  fruitful  and 
important  themes  of  the  evening."  * 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  influence  of  John 
Humphrey  Noyes,  leader  of  the  Oneida  Community 
and  herald  of  the  doctrine  of  Perfectionism,  was 
strong  upon  Garrison  and  brought  him  trouble.  Pie 
was  even  charged,  absolutely  without  foundation, 
1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  211. 


172          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABRISON 

with  cherishing  the  least  savory  of  the  doctrines  of 
Noyes,  an  elastic  conception  of  the  sexual  relation. 
Garrison  found  it  possible  to  be  as  eclectic  in  his 
discipleship  as  he  was  in  his  recourse  to  medicine — 
he  was,  in  fact,  not  of  the  right  temper  for  a  dis 
ciple.  The  truth  is,  that  in  advocating  these  various 
phases  of  a  universal  social  redemption,  he  was  only 
following  the  tendency  of  his  day  and  generation. 
The  Brook  Farm  movement  was  beginning  to  shape 
itself  in  cozy  Boston  parlors.  Dissatisfaction  with 
things  as  they  are  was  in  the  air,  like  a  brooding 
tempest ;  the  older  Unitarianism  was  under  criticism  ; 
women  were  claiming  their  privileges  and  sometimes 
their  rights.  If  old  things  were  not  actually  pass 
ing  away,  certainly  new  things  were  rapidly  assert 
ing  themselves.  A  few  years  hence  theories, 
especially  those  of  Cousin  and  Fourier, — the  some 
what  earlier  influx  of  German  thought  having  in 
great  measure  spent  itself  without  much  effect, — 
were  to  have  a  large  hearing  and  some  following. 
The  country  at  last  was  rapidly  arriving  at  self- 
contemplation  in  political  and  national  affairs,  while 
the  more  intellectual  portion  of  American  society 
was  in  agitation  over  problems  not  a  few.  It  is  no 
wonder,  then,  and  not  a  matter  for  unkind  criticism 
that  Garrison  felt  the  powerful  ferment  about  him. 
It  is  a  marvel  that  he  kept  his  head  so  well  and  his 
abolition  course  so  true  in  all  this  welter  of  ideas, 
for  he  was  prone  to  start  off  in  any  inviting  new 
direction.  Fortunately  for  the  greatest  of  his 
various  causes,  he  belonged  to  none  of  the  "sets" 
in  Boston  society  then  more  interested  in  the  vague 


AN  AWAKENING  PEOPLE  173 

theories  of  the  Newness  than  in  the  concrete  fact  that 
there  were  hundreds  of  thousands  of  human  beings 
on  American  soil  in  a  state  of  thralldom.  A  bull  in 
a  china  shop  would  have  adapted  himself  fully  as 
well  to  the  situation  as  Garrison,  raging  to  break 
the  chains  of  slavery,  would  have  comported  himself 
in  a  Transcendental  seance. 

The  year  1838  witnessed  the  disappearance  of 
the  apprenticeship  system,  especially  in  Jamaica, 
the  completing  act  of  British  emancipation  in  the 
West  Indies.  It  also  saw  another  outbreak  of 
violence  in  America  comparable  to  the  Lovejoy 
tragedy  in  intensity,  but  more  significant  as  happen 
ing  in  a  far  more  civilized  place  than  Alton,  111. 
This  was  the  destruction  on  May  17,  1838,  of  Penn 
sylvania  Hall  in  the  well-ordered  city  of  Philadel 
phia.  In  this  occurrence,  so  eventful  in  anti- 
slavery  annals,  Garrison,  still  in  poor  health,  was  a 
participant.  The  hall,  built  largely  by  Abolition 
money,  was  intended  to  be  as  true  a  temple  of 
freedom  as  Faneuil  Hall  itself,  which  meant,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  that  its  walls  were  to  resound  with 
extravagance,  violent  utterance,  abuse,  as  well  as 
with  the  real  spirit  of  liberty.  It  was  capable  of 
holding  large  audiences  and  had  architectural  merit. 
Several  days  of  anti-slavery  discussion  had  been 
planned  for  and  most  of  the  principal  fighters,  men 
and  women,  were  gathered  in  the  new  edifice  of 
freedom. 

In  answer  to  the  dedicatory  address  by  David 
Paul  Brown,  Garrison,  who  found  the  orator  un 
sound  on  the  question  of  inmiediatism  and  a  man 


174         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

of  gentle  measures  in  regard  to  the  whole  matter  of 
slavery,  showed  his  exceptional  qualifications  for 
being  "  uncomfortable,"  when  it  was  borne  in  upon 
him  to  be  so.  "If  there  be  a  neck  to  that  dis 
course,  "  he  proclaimed,  "let  a  stone  be  tied  around 
it,  and  let  it  be  sunk  in  the  depth  of  the  sea.*' 
Thus  he  proposed  to  rebaptize  the  hall  and  "wash 
out  this  stain  of  reproach."  It  was  a  perfect  in 
stance  of  his  inability  to  fellowship  with  any  one 
who  preached  half-measures  or  who  showed  a  lack 
of  absolute  principles.  An  extremist  himself,  he 
probably  always  had  more  man-to-man  respect  for 
slaveholders  than  for  the  safe  and  sane  men  of  that 
time. 

The  next  day  there  had  gathered  an  immense 
audience,  among  which  were  many  Quakers,  and 
naturally  a  preponderance  of  women,  doubtless 
keyed  up  with  expectancy  after  Garrison's  boldness 
of  the  preceding  day.  Xo  sooner  had  Garrison 
finished  his  address  than  a  mob  rushed  in,  and, 
finding  nothing  particular  to  do  except  to  insult  so 
large  a  body  of  women,  rushed  out  again.  It  then 
began  to  use  the  usual  insensate  arguments  of  the 
inarticulate,— brickbats.  Maria  Weston  Chapman, 
one  of  the  noblest  of  all  Garrison's  adherents,  ad 
dressed  the  meeting  with  that  superb  courage 
peculiar  to  women  of  such  rare  character  as  hers. 
She  was  followed  by  Angelina  Grimke,  just  wedded 
to  Theodore  Dwight  Weld,  one  of  the  most  devoted 
of  Abolitionists.  With  an  equal  courage  she  re 
joiced  that  the  "stupid  repose"  of  Philadelphia 
had  been  aroused.  Lucretia  Mott  and  Abby  Kelley, 


AN  AWAKENING  PEOPLE  175 

other  Abolitionists  destined  to  become  well  known 
in  the  strife,  next  spoke.  A  day  session  of  the 
Anti- Slavery  Convention  of  American  Women 
followed  on  Thursday,  but  in  the  evening  the  build 
ing  was  set  on  fire  and  entirely  destroyed,  the  mob 
refusing  to  allow  the  fire-engines  to  do  their  work. 
The  Anti-Slavery  office  was  also  destroyed,  together 
with  practically  all  of  Benjamin  Lundy's  belong 
ings.  It  was  probably  well  for  Garrison  that  he 
kept  out  of  the  way  on  that  eventful  night  and 
was  safely  on  the  road  to  New  England  the  next 
morning. 

Evil  is  epidemic  among  the  unthinking,  and  it  is 
therefore  not  strange  that  only  a  strong  military 
force,  armed  with  ball  cartridges,  prevented  a 
meditated  assault  on  the  just  finished  Marlborough 
Chapel  in  Boston,  which  was  dedicated  on  May  24th, 
though,  according  to  Garrison,  in  a  rather  tame 
fashion.  Mayor  John  Swift  of  Philadelphia  was  as 
ineffectual  in  controlling  riot  as  Mayor  Lyman,  but 
Mayor  Samuel  A.  Eliot,  father  of  the  great  president 
of  Harvard  University,  who,  when  an  alderman,  had 
by  his  moral  indifference  to  the  conduct  of  the  Gar 
rison  mob  converted  Dr.  Henry  I.  Bowditch  into 
a  red-hot  Abolitionist,  now  stayed  threatened  vio 
lence  as  firmly  as  he  had  quelled  the  fierce  Irish  row 
known  as  the  Broad  Street  Riot  just  about  a  year 
previous  to  the  Marlborough  Chapel  occurrence. 

The  Life  by  the  Garrisons  draws  a  close  parallel 
between  the  Philadelphia  and  the  Boston  mob  of 
1835,  and  points  out  that  in  both  cases  violence  was 
directed  against  assemblages  of  women.  The  Amer- 


176          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKEISON 

lean  inind  was  not  ready  iii  the  late  thirties,  nor 
is  it  ready  yet,  to  consider  as  of  overwhelming  im 
portance  the  complete  emancipation  of  women  from 
entanglements  in  part  of  their  own  making.  But 
there  were  signs  then  of  more  than  usual  flurry  in 
their  behalf,  just  as  there  was  excitement  over 
many  things.  It  would  have  been  strange  indeed 
had  not  Garrison  been  influenced  by  this  particular 
phase  of  the  general  Newness.  Action  rather  than 
abstract  thought  was  characteristic  of  the  women 
with  whom  he  was  associated.  Of  singular  purity 
of  character  himself,  he  was  well  adapted  to  make 
helpful  and  inspiring  friendships  in  either  sex,  with 
no  basis  other  than  a  common  and  absorbing  cause. 
But  just  as  other  men  were  unprepared  for  his 
radicalism  in  other  ways,  so  were  they  unprepared 
to  welcome  women  officially  at  any  feast  of  reason 
on  anti-slavery  matters.  Naturally  enough,  the 
clergy,  falling  back  on  tradition,  were  the  most 
firmly  opposed  to  innovations.  Six  orthodox  min 
isters  hastened  to  withdraw  from  membership  in  the 
New  England  Anti-Slavery  Convention  because  of 
the  passage  of  a  resolution  inviting  women  "to  be 
come  members  and  participate  in  the  proceed 
ings. 'M  Garrison,  in  answer  to  Whittier,  who  so 
far  agreed  with  these  malcontents  as  to  hold  that 
the  admission  of  women  had  "nothing  to  do  with 
the  professed  object  of  the  convention,"  admitted 
that  a  discussion  of  women's  rights  was  not  relevant, 
but  that  the  "  gn.g"  should  not  be  applied  to  women 
"when  they  affirm  that  their  consciences  demand 
1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  220. 


AN  AWAKENING  PEOPLE  177 

that  they  should  speak."  Such  seems  to  have  been 
the  inception  of  a  schism  which  was,  in  union  with 
other  dissensions,  to  bring  trouble  upon  all  Garri- 
sonianism. 

In  spite  of  his  indifferent  health,  mainly  induced 
by  a  scrofulous  condition,  Garrison  was  so  far  from 
weary  in  well  doing  that  he  had  prepared  himself 
to  break  a  lance  with  the  American  Peace  Society 
and  all  similar  bodies  which  seemed  to  him  to  be 
following  an  equivocal  course.  During  the  summer 
of  1838  plans  were  formulating  for  a  convention, 
which  was  held  at  Marlborough  Chapel  in  Boston 
on  September  18-20th.  Peace  was  its  avowed  ob 
ject  ;  but  contentious  harangues  with  the  only 
weapon,  offensive  or  defensive,  permissible  to  its 
members,  were  to  be  expected.  Abolitionists  were 
in  the  majority,  but  the  more  conservative  were 
there  also,  among  them  the  Eev.  Ezra  Stiles  Gan 
nett,  Channing's  colleague,  a  godly  but  inelastic 
man.  Garrison  by  his  own  admission  "  grieved  him 
sorely  "  in  replying  to  this  clergyman's  objection 
to  a  resolution  that  no  man  and  no  government  has 
a  right  to  take  life  on  any  pretext. 

The  practical  side  of  Garrison  was  shown  at  the 
opening  of  the  meeting  by  a  suggestion  that  each 
person  present  should  write  "his"  or  "her" 
name  on  a  slip  to  prevent  mistakes  in  making  up 
the  roll ;  by  this  shrewd  opening  he  brought  the 
women  delegates  into  the  privileges  of  the  conven 
tion.  Presently  the  Eev.  George  C.  Beckwith,  lofty 
in  the  councils  of  the  American  Peace  Society,  was 
called  to  order  by  Abby  Kelley — a  high-handed 


178          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKB1SON 

proceeding  which  led  to  the  speedily-accepted 
resignations  of  several  outraged  brethren. 

Garrison,  as  chairman  of  a  committee  of  nine, 
wrote  the  constitution  and  declaration  of  sentiments, 
both  of  which,  after  some  animated  debate,  were 
adopted.  The  declaration  was  so  extreme  that 
Wendell  Phillips  and  Edmund  Quincy,  with  several 
other  well-known  Abolitionists,  felt  unable  to  vote 
for  it.  Garrison  himself  felt  the  serenest  confidence 
that  he  had  drawn  a  great  paper  and  that  mankind 
would  eventually  "hail  the  Twentieth  of  September 
with  more  exultation  and  gratitude  than  Americans 
now  do  the  Fourth  of  July.'7  It  stood  out  against 
"  allegiance  to  any  human  government"  and  against 
all  wars  and  "all  preparations  for  war."  It  pro 
claimed  that  it  was  unlawful  to  bear  arms  or  to  hold 
a  military  office,  to  become  a  member  of  any  legisla 
tive  or  judicial  body,  or  to  elect  others  as  substitutes. 
So  little  was  left  in  the  world  for  the  non-resistant 
actively  to  perform  in  the  organic  life  of  society  that 
it  seems  a  concession  to  the  imperfection  of  human 
nature  itself  for  a  full  right  to  have  been  granted  to 
"  assail  iniquity  in  high  places  and  in  low  places." 

The  American  Peace  Society  and  its  ally,  the  New 
York  Peace  Society,  found  the  new  "  Non-Resistant 
Society,"  the  outcome  of  the  convention,  as  little  to 
their  liking  as  the  Colonization  Society  found  Gar 
rison's  earlier  endeavors. 

The  Liberator  responded  to  the  new  advocacy  of 
its  editor,  and  into  its  columns  had  frequently  to  be 
squeezed  something  relating  to  peace  and  non-resist 
ance,  to  the  sacrifice  of  anti-slavery  material.  This 


AN  AWAKENING  PEOPLE  179 

was  not  to  the  complete  satisfaction  of  some  of  its 
adherents.  One  friend  writes  that  u  during  the 
whole  of  this  summer  I  have  scarcely  met  a  number 
in  which  there  is  not  something  which  repels." 

Miss  Weston,  sister  of  the  intrepid  Mrs.  Chapman, 
too  wise  to  oppose,  suggested  a  divorce  of  the  two 
interests  and  the  establishment  of  a  new  paper  ;  for 
"it  is  admitted  by  all,  the  doctrines  of  non-resist 
ance  are  not  identical  with  those  of  Abolition.  * '  The 
next  year  the  Non-Besistant,  with  Garrison  on  the 
editing  committee  and  bearing  the  motto,  "Resist 
not  Evil — Jesus  Christ,"  came  into  existence,  paid 
for  itself  for  a  time,  and  expired  on  June  29,  1842. 
The  society,  under  the  name  of  the  New  England 
Non- Resistance  Society,  ceased  in  1849. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

A  HOUSE   DIVIDING   AGAINST   ITSELF 

THESE  closing  years  of  the  first  decade  of  the 
campaign  for  immediate  abolition  show  plainly 
that  astonishing  progress  had  been  made.  How  far 
Garrisoniauisni,  pure  and  simple,  had  to  do  with 
these  results,  it  is  not  possible  to  determine  with 
exactness.  Other  portions  of  the  country,  especially 
Ohio  and  its  affiliated  neighbors,  Pennsylvania  and 
New  York,  were  bringing  forward  new  men  and 
new  ideas  or  variations  of  the  original  simple  plan 
to  work,  undivided  and  unattached  to  political 
machinery  of  any  kind,  for  the  freeing  of  the  slaves. 
Every  day  of  the  year  a  new  local  anti-slavery  or 
ganization  of  some  sort  came  into  being.1  The  ec 
clesiastical  front  was  beginning  to  waver,  especially 
in  that  vanguard  of  religious  progress,  the  Methodist 
church.  Men  running  for  office  were  obliged  to  de 
clare  their  convictions,  or  certainly  their  intentions, 
on  the  absorbing  topic.  There  were  evidences  that 
some  Abolitionists  would  welcome  a  fuller  connec 
tion  with  political  activities,  but  the  rank  and  file 
still  held  fast  to  the  original  working  principle  that 
party  organization  or  political  affiliation  would  in 
jure  the  pristine  integrity  of  the  cause.  Yet  there 
was  already  a  slight  general  movement  toward  the 
1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  143. 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF    181 

acceptance  of  political  method,  as  witness  the  pledges 
circulated  in  the  city  of  New  York,  committing  the 
signers  not  to  "  vote  for  any  man  or  representative 
to  Congress  who  is  not  in  favor  of  the  immediate 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia." 
At  a  convention  in  Worcester,  Mass.,  in  October, 
1838,  there  was  claimed  the  right  to  form  an  anti- 
slavery  party,  while  advising  against  it.1 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  in  spite  of 
spasmodic  signs  of  impatience,  the  Abolition  move 
ment,  dogged  and  unremitting,  was  still  wonder 
fully  coherent.  The  continual  presentation  of 
memorials  to  Congress  hardened  the  pro-slavery 
heart  as  Pharaoh's  heart  was  hardened,  and  grad 
ually  put  the  South  on  the  offensive.  Such  was  the 
sure  working  of  the  non-resistant  influence  in  the 
Abolition  cause.  To  offset  this  memorializing  of 
Congress,  the  effectual  closure  of  1837  was  passed, 
denying  the  right  of  slaves  to  petition.  Then  fol 
lowed  John  Mercer  Patton's  gag,  denying  the 
presentation  or  reading  of  any  petition  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
which  was  reaffirmed  by  a  gag  rule  later  in  1838. 

Eemote  from  these  thickening  contentions  at 
Washington  and  elsewhere,  the  anti- slavery  leader 
saw  the  year  1838  close  with  whispers  of  dissension 
and  with  a  growing  sentiment  abroad  that  he  was 
an  enemy  to  some  cherished  religions  ideals.  Prob 
ably  the  grosser  charges  that  he  was  of  lax  views  as 
to  what  still  goes  under  the  euphemistic  name 
" morality"  were  believed,  if  believed  at  all,  by 
1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  245. 


182          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARKISON 

very  few  persons.  It  became  necessary  for  his 
friends  to  defend  him  from  the  charge  of  being  a 
breaker  of  the  Sabbath  (though  in  fact  he  wanted 
seven  Sabbaths  a  week),  and  of  being  an  enemy  to 
Christianity,  when  lie  was  trying  or  thought  that  lie 
was  trying,  to  put  the  principles  of  its  Founder  into 
practice.  The  Liberator,  now  approaching  its  ninth 
volume,  was  still  making  a  struggle  to  live.  Knapp, 
the  printer  and  publisher,  was  deeply  involved  be 
cause  of  his  attempt  to  carry  on  a  publication  bureau 
in  addition  to  the  paper.  Again  Garrison  was  set 
on  his  feet  by  a  committee  appointed  to  control  the 
Liberator's  accounts.  Oliver  Johnson  was  made  a 
sort  of  editorial  adjunct  to  him,  while  his  own  hands 
were  left  as  free  as  ever,  Free  hands,  however,  will 
not  necessarily  enable  a  man  to  repel  a  rising  tide. 

Still  he  continued  tireless  as  a  debater  and  re 
sourceful  as  an  editor.  He  had  the  ever-sharpened 
retorts  of  the  controversialist  and  was  able  to  meet 
all  arguments  with  keenness,  logic,  imperturbable 
control,  and  generally  with  good-nature.  His 
armory  of  Scriptural  phraseology  was  always  full  of 
burnished  weapons,  and  he  seemed  to  have  well 
fortified  the  abolition  defenses  against  the  assaults 
of  counter  argument.  Abolition  was  a  religious,  a 
moral  contest,  a  veritable  Holy  War.  The  devil 
was  not  to  be  fought  with  fire  or  with  his  own 
methods.  The  ultimate  enlightenment  of  the  slave 
holder  by  the  persistent  influence  of  the  diviner  spirit 
working  through  such  humble  instruments  as  him 
self  and  his  followers  was  no  small  part  of  his  pro 
gram.  He  believed  in  the  foolishness  of  preaching, 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF   183 

in  the  final  triumph  of  good,  but  it  does  not  appear 
that  he  clearly  saw  how  the  problem  would 
eventually  work  out.  That  it  did  work  out  by 
means  of  bloody  war  and  incalculable  sacrifice  of 
life  and  property  was  because,  so  he  and  the  old-time 
Garrisonians  held,  the  ploughshares  and  the  prun 
ing  hooks  of  non-resistance  and  moral  suasion  were 
beaten  into  the  swords  and  spears  of  political  con 
troversy  and  action.  The  great  fallacy  was  to  sup 
pose  that  human  nature,  or  that  part  of  it  coming 
into  a  fuller  understanding  of  itself  in  the  United 
States  of  America  some  seventy  years  ago,  was  so 
constituted  that  it  could  or  would  follow  for  long  the 
path  of  pleasantness  and  peace  and  arrive  at  a  pre 
destined  goal  without  political  contest.  This  nation 
was  born  in  strife,  and  when  the  deadlier  sort  ceased 
for  a  generation,  men  turned  inevitably  to  political 
contention.  It  is  still  a  marvel  that  even  an 
enthusiast  like  Garrison  did  not  recognize  the  par 
ticular  make-up  of  this  human  nature  that  he  was 
trying  so  hard  to  bend  to  his  purpose.  He  lacked 
the  sagacity  of  the  later  politicians  who  first  made 
the  people  see  things  their  way  and  then  led  them 
to  suppose  that  the  leaders  were  only  the  interpre 
ters  of  the  popular  will.  The  " Peter  Sterlings" 
were  not  yet  at  hand.  The  next  two  years  will  show 
the  issue  of  a  fight  which,  after  much  skirmishing, 
had  really  begun. 

Even  his  most  profound  admirers  will  not  attempt 
to  say  that  William  Lloyd  Garrison  was  not  dicta 
torial,  sometimes  as  a  speaker,  sometimes  as  an 
editor,  and  more  often  than  not  as  an  organizer.  A 


184         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARKISON 

politician  may  conciliate,  a  dictator  must  have  his 
say.  He  must  naturally  have  a  strong  hand  on  the 
seat  of  power,  but  he  must  look  out  for  his  provinces, 
where  unrest  often  begins  and  spreads  centreward. 
In  the  East,  in  New  England,  he  kept  his  supremacy 
in  spite  of  dissident  Tracy s  and  Phelpses  and  their 
following  ;  he  seemed  to  combat  successfully  the 
various  sectaries  and  those  who  would  cramp  a 
quasi-religious  movement  into  narrow  channels  ;  in 
spite  of  much  feeling,  expressed  or  silent,  the 
public  activity  of  women  in  the  anti-slavery  cause 
was  growing  as  he  sincerely  wished  it  to  grow. 
But  outside  of  a  considerably  wide  territory  of 
which  New  England  was  the  most  vital  part,  his 
control,  which  depended  so  much  on  his  personality 
and  actual  presence,  was  not  so  sure.  In  what  then 
passed  for  the  Near  West,  in  Central  New  York, 
there  was  no  such  severe  discipline  as  in  Boston, 
and  so  it  fell  out  that  non-resistance,  a  complete 
withdrawal  from  political  action,  was  not  an  ac 
ceptable  doctrine  in  the  outermost  zone  of  Garrison's 
influence.  Perhaps  if  he  had  lived  in  an  era  of 
special  railroad  cars  and  touring  motors,  he  might 
have  held  Utica  as  firmly  as  he  still  held  Boston 
and  Providence,  but  perhaps  not ;  for  sooner  or 
later  he  had  to  reach  a  democracy  very  well  satisfied 
with  its  own  methods  and  loving  politics  as  the 
common  stimulation  of  the  life  of  the  country.  He 
did  not  win  attention  and  rouse  thought,  as  Lincoln 
did,  by  discoursing  on  equal  terms  in  country  stores 
with  thinking  but  undisciplined  men,  every  one  a 
politician.  Non-political  action  might  be  success- 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF   185 

fully  driven  home  in  Maryborough  Chapel  or  in  the 
parlor  of  some  Abolitionist's  family,  but  it  did  not 
warm  the  anti-slavery  blood  as  far  west  as  Utica, 
when  Garrison  was  not  there  to  push  his  argument 
or  to  kindle  hearts  with  his  manly  beauty  and  his 
moral  fervor. 

The  Massachusetts  An ti- Slavery  Society,  which 
the  year  previous  (1839)  had  paid  into  the  treasury 
of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  more  money 
than  was  collected  from  the  whole  state  of  New 
York,  more  than  all  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  rest  of 
New  England  combined,  and  five  times  as  much  as 
Ohio,1  was  slightly  behind  in  its  guaranty  of  $10,000. 
This  gave  a  chance  for  the  parent  society  to  insist 
that  Massachusetts  be  opened  to  its  own  solicitors  of 
funds.  The  annual  meeting  of  the  Massachusetts 
Society  was  held  on  January  23,  1839,  and  was 
largely  attended.  The  leader  of  an  opposition, 
bound  this  time  to  make  itself  felt,  was  Henry  B. 
Stanton,  one  of  the  students  who  had  withdrawn 
from  Lane  Theological  Seminary,  later  the  husband 
of  a  more  famous  wife,  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton. 
He  was  then  in  the  pay  of  the  executive  committee 
of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  and  was  not 
in  sympathy  with  non-resistance.  Garrison  had  al 
ready  sensed  the  plan  to  change  the  managers  of  the 
society  and  to  crush  the  Liberator  by  starting  a  new 
weekly  official  organ  in  Massachusetts.  Several 
clergymen,  Torrey,  St.  Clair,  and  Colver,  were  the 
ringleaders  of  the  scheme  to  unhorse  the  unmanage 
able  editor,  and  they  were  sore  amazed  when  they 
1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  261. 


186          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

found  themselves  exposed  in  advance  by  the  Libera 
tor,  which  was  ever  alert  for  a  newspaper  "  scoop." 
The  Rev.  Mr.  Phelps  went  so  far  as  to  pronounce 
Garrison  "  a  wicked  man  "  on  account  of  this  exhi 
bition  of  journalistic  enterprise.  The  disaffected 
clergymen  were  now  beginning  to  call  Garrison 
tyrannical  and  spoke  of  his  galling  "yoke "and 
"brassy  brow"  without  much  reserve.  Even  the 
sober-minded  Goodell  from  a  distance  dubbed  him 
a  "  Napoleon."  Stanton  at  this  meeting,  in  urging 
the  need  of  a  new  paper,  said  :  "On  the  subject  of 
peace,  perhaps,  he  [Mr.  Garrison]  is  nearer  right 
than  I  am.  But  he  has  lowered  the  standard  of 
Abolition."  He  then  abruptly  asked  :  "Mr.  Gar 
rison,  do  you  or  do  you  not  believe  it  a  sin  to  go  to 
the  polls?"  "Sin  for  me!"  was  the  reiterated 
answer  of  the  adroit  master  of  polemics,  who  the 
next  day  drew  a  resolution,  afterward  adopted,  to 
the  effect  that  Abolitionists  who  felt  called  by  a 
sense  of  duty  to  vote,  and  failed  to  do  so  when  there 
was  a  chance  to  aid  the  slave  by  going  to  the  polls, 
were  "recreant  to  their  high  professions  and  un 
worthy  of  the  name  they  bear."  Surely  Garrison 
had  a  way  of  showing  his  enemies  how  shrewdly  he 
might  play  politics  if  he  had  a  mind  to  ! 

The  opposition,  thus  routed,  were  still  intent 
on  starting  the  Massachusetts  Abolitionist,  "devoted 
exclusively  to  the  discussion  of  slavery,"  and  with 
Stanton  temporarily  in  charge.  The  first  number 
appeared  on  February  7th,  and  the  price  was  one 
dollar  a  year,  as  against  the  Liberator's  cost  of  two 
dollars  and  fifty  cents.  Friends  of  the  Liberator 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF   187 

rallied  to  its  support,  new  money  was  subscribed  or 
brought  in,  and  its  purposes  were  upheld.  In  just 
three  weeks  after  the  annual  meeting  above  de 
scribed,  the  executive  committee  of  the  main  society 
notified  the  Massachusetts  Society  that  its  own 
agents  would  henceforth  attend  to  collections  in  the 
state,  a  step  which  seems  to  have  been  almost 
punitive  in  its  intent.  Stanton,  Lewis  Tappan, 
and  James  G.  Birney  appeared  at  the  quarterly 
meeting  of  the  Massachusetts  Society  to  represent 
the  attitude  of  the  American  Society,  but  the  local 
board's  action  was  overwhelmingly  sustained,  and 
by  the  1st  of  May  the  money  in  arrears  was  raised. 

A  pledge  was  redeemed  and  promises  were  made 
good,  but  nothing  essential  was  thus  settled.  Gar 
rison,  writing  to  his  wife  on  May  2d,  says:  "I 
anticipate  a  breaking  up  of  our  whole  organization. 
But  my  mind  is  calm  and  peaceful."  In  spite 
of  his  misgivings,  he  had  been  as  active  as  ever,  for 
on  March  23d  had  appeared  the  first  number  of  the 
Cradle  of  Liberty,  a  sort  of  weekly  digest  of  the 
anti-slavery  portion  of  the  Liberator,  for  seventy- 
five  cents  a  year,  frankly  intended  to  "  hedge  up 
the  way  of  the  Abolitionist."  *  The  paper  lasted  a 
year  and  four  months  with  a  good  circulation  and 
was  succeeded  by  the  Monthly  Offering. 

It  was  not  Garrison's  intention  to  go  to  the 
anniversary  meeting  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society  held  on  May  7-10,  1839,  partly  on  account 
of  the  expense ;  the  opening  day,  however,  found 
him  there,  with  the  ' '  flower  of  Massachusetts  Aboli- 
*Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  285. 


188         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

tionism."  Besourceful  as  ever,  he  managed  to 
secure  a  ten  minutes'  limit  to  the  speeches  and, 
after  prolonged  discussion  and  in  spite  of  the 
reactionary  clergy,  the  admission  of  women  dele 
gates.  He  successfully  moved  several  resolves  to 
the  effect  that  Abolitionists  ought  to  help  such  men 
as  will  tl  advocate  the  repeal  of  every  local  enact 
ment  by  which  the  aid  of  the  public  authority  is 
lent  to  the  support  of  slavery  "  ;  and  that  no  mem 
ber  should  be  excluded  from  the  society  who  had 
conscientious  scruples  against  some  of  the  measures 
favored,  "as  proper  for  the  advancement  of  the 
anti-slavery  cause."  This  was  accomplished  in 
spite  of  Birney's  efforts,  previous  to  the  meeting,  to 
show  the  absurdity  of  non-voters  sending  petitions 
to  Congress  or  urging  others  to  vote  and  of  his  at 
tempt,  at  the  meeting,  to  carry  a  resolve  to  the  ef 
fect  that  it  was  inconsistent  with  the  duty  of  Aboli 
tionists  under  the  Constitution  to  "maintain  that 
the  elective  franchise  ought  not  to  be  used  by 
Abolitionists  to  advance  the  cause  of  emancipa 
tion."  1 

With  every  important  attempt  of  the  executive 
committee  circumvented  and  his  own  basic  doctrines 
sustained,  it  is  no  wonder  that  Garrison  was  tempo 
rarily  cheered.  Impartial  minds,  however,  at  this 
remote  day,  not  sharing  the  fervor  of  his  exaltation, 
do  not  find  it  easy  precisely  to  understand  the  atti 
tude  of  a  man  who  would  not  and  could  not  con 
scientiously  throw  a  ballot  in  the  cause  of  anti- 
slavery,  but  who  found  it  proper  to  urge  others, 
1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  299. 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF    189 

through  formal  declarations,  to  cast  their  votes. 
What  wonder  is  it  that  some,  with  purposes  as  lofty 
as  his  own,  such  as  Birney,  Elizur  Wright,  and  the 
Tappans,  could  find  in  this  inconsistency  a  note  of 
self -righteousness  or  a  willingness  to  see  a  cause 
prosper  by  methods  impossible  to  Garrison  himself  ? 
Whatever  opinion  may  be  come  at,  relative  to  his 
thus  making  a  scapegoat  of  fellow  Abolitionists 
while  his  own  "  perfectionism"  remained  unsullied, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  Garrison  did  find  it  morally 
possible  to  use  politics  at  conventions  and  meetings, 
while  he  scorned  honestly  and  fervently  the  evasive 
ness  of  Whig  and  Democrat  alike.  After  all,  the 
main  defense  for  Garrison  must  be  his  own  :  that  he 
believed  in  divine  not  human  government ;  that  he 
did  not  push  his  non-resistant  doctrine  as  an  Aboli 
tionist  ;  and  that  he  wished  to  leave  membership  in 
all  anti-slavery  societies,  the  parent  society  in  par 
ticular,  untrammeled  by  requirements  as  to  sex  or 
sects  or  political  action  or  anything  else. 

On  May  29th,  the  day  following  the  assembling 
of  the  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Convention,  the 
Massachusetts  Abolition  Society  was  organized,  with 
Elizur  Wright  and  the  Eev.  Charles  T.  Torrey  as 
the  two  secretaries.  The  admission  of  women  to 
membership  in  the  convention  was  the  ostensible 
cams  belli,  but  the  plan  to  make  a  schism  in  Massa 
chusetts  seems  to  have  been  carefully  considered, 
with  a  view  to  the  approval  of  the  American  Society. 
One  more  gap  in  the  once  solid  anti-slavery  senti 
ment  opened  when  the  National  Convention  of 
Abolitionists,  meeting  in  Albany  on  the  last  day  of 


190          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

July,  managed  to  snub  Garrison  by  refusing  to 
admit  women  as  delegates  and  by  failing  to  entertain 
his  resolution  in  opposition  to  any  projected  plan 
for  the  nomination  by  Abolitionists  of  presidential 
or  vice-presidential  candidates.  Futile  as  this  con 
vention  proved  to  be,  on  the  whole  it  did  show  a 
turn  toward  political  activity  and  the  possible  in 
ception  of  a  third  party.  Garrison  greatly  dreaded 
such  a  movement,  largely  because  a  growing  chance 
for  maintaining  an  anti-slavery  balance  of  power 
between  the  two  great  parties  would  then  be  des 
troyed.  Moral  and  religious  objections  were  also 
strongly  urged  by  him  with  his  usual  vehemence 
and  clearness  of  diction.  The  sentiment  at  this 
time  in  Ohio  proved  to  be  decidedly  agaiust  a  third 
party  and  in  favor  of  the  original  methods  of  an  un 
restricted  anti-slavery  line  of  action.  Stanton  had 
attended  the  Western  Reserve  Convention  held  in 
October  and  seemed  to  fall  in  with  the  "Ohio 
idea"  ;  but  it  was  his  real  intention  to  u  wait  till 
both  parties  had  nominated,  and  then,  if  Clay  and 
Van  Buren  are  the  men,  call  a  great  convention  to 
consider  the  wisdom  of  nominating."  l 

Shortly  afterward,  Garrison,  hearing  of  a  letter 
written  by  Elizur  Wright  to  Stanton,  forced  Wright 
to  print  it  in  the  Abolitionist.  This  letter  pleaded 
hard  for  a  ll  decided  step  toward  presidential 
candidates"  at  the  Ohio  convention,  urging  among 
other  reasons  that  if  such  a  step  were  not  taken, 
"  our  organization  here  is  a  gone  case.  It  has  been, 
entre  nous,  shockingly  mismanaged."  So,  up  to  the 

1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  315. 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF   191 

close  of  1839,  nothing  definite  had  resulted  in  favor 
of  the  Third- Party  movement,  although  Birney,  rep 
resenting  New  York,  and  P.  J.  Le  Moyne,  Pennsyl 
vania,  had  found  it  expedient  to  decline  a  nomi 
nation  for  the  presidency  and  vice- presidency  re 
spectively,  tendered  them  by  a  convention  held  in 
Warsaw,  N.  Y.,  in  the  month  of  November. 

Intent  thus  far  to  proclaim  a  gospel  adapted  to 
human  nature  as  it  ought  to  be,  rather  than  a  policy 
that  the  American  democracy,  as  constituted,  might 
understand  and  possibly  follow,  the  undaunted 
editor,  still  young  but  no  longer  youthful,  began 
the  year  1840  with  his  battle  nearly  won.  There 
was  opposition,  but  he  had  not  been  dispossessed 
of  supremacy.  The  Third-Party  movement,  though 
still  a  small  affair,  was  already  beyond  his  control. 
New  Organization,  for  so  the  seceders  from  his 
immediate  following  came  to  be  called,  continued 
their  activities,  against  which  he  seemed  able  to 
hold  his  ground.1  But  the  details  of  these  con 
tentions  are  not  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  re 
hearsed,  especially  since  they  differ  in  no  essential 
way  from  the  various  strifes  of  the  preceding  year. 
Of  interest  to  Garrison,  if  not  to  the  country  at 
large,  was  the  ''National  Anti-Slavery  Convention 
for  Independent  Nomination"  which  met  in  early 
April  at  Albany,  and  nominated  Birney  and  Thomas 
Earle  of  Pennsylvania  for  President  and  Vice-Presi 
dent.  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio  sent  none  of  the  one 

According  to  Dr.  Edward  E.  Hale,  the  two  factions  were 
dubbed  "Old  Ogs  "  and  "  New  Ogs."  Memoirs  of  a  Hundred 
Years,  Vol.  II,  p.  129. 


1913          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

hundred  and  twenty-four  delegates,  eighty-six  per 
cent,  of  whom  came  from  the  state  of  New  York. 
A  month  later  these  candidates  were  again  nomi 
nated  by  a  convention  which  followed  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  American  Society  in  New  York  City. 
Then  came  into  formal  being  the  small,  ineffectual 
Liberty  party,  which  by  strange  alliances  proved 
to  be  the  grandparent  of  the  Republican  party  that 
seventeen  years  later  was  to  make  itself  felt,  and  in 
four  years  more  to  carry  the  country  against  a  di 
vided  Democracy.  "It  must  be  based,"  wrote 
Henry  C.  Wright,  "on  the  divinity  of  the  ballot 
box,  or  it  is  useless. ' ' 

By  this  time  Garrison  had  gained  enemies  of  more 
consequence  than  a  handful  of  Massachusetts  clergy 
men,  and  among  them  William  Goodell,  a  sane,  dry 
man,  who  had  opposed,  with  balanced  mind,  the 
"Clerical  Appeal"  and  the  " Non-Resistant "  doc 
trines.  If  Goodell  was  not  luminous,  and  if  he  took 
a  sort  of  acrid  pleasure  in  defining  the  "proper 
position  of  females,"  he  was  at  least  clear-headed. 
To-day  his  Slavery  and  Anti-Slavery,  published  in 
1853,  is  about  as  definite  and  intelligible  a  state 
ment  as  has  been  written  of  the  varying  situations 
of  the  movement.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  that 
"  Abolition  and  Non-Resistance  can  no  more  walk 
together  than  can  Abolition  and  Colonization,"  ' 
and  predicted  the  practical  extinction  of  the 
American  Society  if  the  Garrisonian  forces  should 
prevail  at  the  May  meeting  in  New  York.  In  this 
meeting  assembled  more  than  one  thousand  dele- 

1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  345. 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF   193 

gates,  fully  four  hundred  and  fifty  of  them  coming 
from  Massachusetts  and  elsewhere  in  New  England 
on  a  Sound  boat,  specially  chartered  in  the  interests 
of  Garrison.  About  one  hundred  more  friendly 
delegates  went  by  other  routes.  Garrison  had  in 
the  assembly  a  working  majority  of  some  ninety 
votes.  There  must  have  been  scattered  through  all 
the  free  states,  at  this  time,  between  one  and  two 
hundred  thousand  anti-slavery  adherents,  with 
strong  abolition  tendencies,  a  majority  of  whom 
really  knew  little  or  nothing,  if  Goodell  is  correct, 
of  * '  what  was  going  forward. ' J  One  state  effectually 
controlled  an  assemblage  of  national  proportions. 
In  the  wicked  game  of  politics,  which  Garrison  ab 
horred,  this  would  be  called  packing  a  convention. 
The  New  Organization,  doubtless  ready  enough  to 
use  the  same  tactics,  had  it  possessed  the  votes, 
figured  inconspicuously.  Arthur  Tappan  was  re- 
elected  president,  but  declined  to  serve,  and  even 
kept  away  from  the  sessions.  The  meeting  con 
firmed  the  appointment  by  the  vice-president, 
Francis  Jackson,  of  Miss  Abby  Kelley  on  the 
business  committee  j  thereupon  Lewis  Tappan, 
Amos  A.  Phelps  and  Charles  W.  Denison  refused 
to  serve  on  this  committee,  and  the  two  former 
asked  those  "who  had  voted  against  the  appoint 
ment  of  women  to  meet  and  form  a  new  society."  i 
Thus  came  to  be  formed  the  American  and  Foreign 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  the  first  presidency  of  which 
was  accepted  by  Arthur  Tappan.  Lucretia  Mott, 
Lydia  Maria  Child  and  Maria  Chapman  were  put 
1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  349. 


194          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

on  the  executive  committee  of  the  old  society.  It 
was  then  voted  that  by  its  constitution,  the  society  did 
not  attempt  to  determine  whether  it  was  or  was  not 
the  duty  of  any  member  to  go  to  the  polls.  Any  sup 
port  of  the  candidacy  of  Van  Bureii  or  Harrison 
for  the  presidency  was  discountenanced,  and  the 
course  of  the  Liberty  party  at  Albany  disapproved 
of  by  resolution.  Birney  was  thus  ranked,  not  as 
a  man  but  politically,  with  the  two  other  candidates. 
It  is  no  marvel  that  some  of  the  minority  must  have 
felt  with  Chaucer's  Chauntecleer  that  it  was  a  case 
of  mutter  est  hominis  confusio.  Some  weeks  before 
this  meeting  the  executive  committee  had  nominally 
transferred  to  the  New  York  City  Anti-Slavery 
Society  the  Emancipator,  until  then  the  official 
organ  of  the  society.  To  this  proceeding  Garrison 
objected  and  held  that  the  new  holder  was  bound  to 
restore  the  paper.  It  is  evident  from  the  trans 
action  that  the  executive  committee,  forecasting 
defeat,  was  determined  not  to  allow  the  Emancipator 
to  get  into  the  hands  of  any  new  committee  which 
would  proceed  to  convert  the  paper  into  a  true 
Garrisonian  organ.  The  price  asked  for  a  return  of 
the  paper  into  the  National  Society's  keeping  was 
prohibitive,  and  within  a  month  plans  were  on  foot 
to  start  the  National  Anti-Slavery  Standard.  Of  the 
first  number  of  the  new  official  organ,  Garrison, 
with  his  usual  magnanimity,  says  :  "  It  is  a  beauti 
fully  printed  sheet,  and  makes  a  fine  appearance.  I 
am  afraid,  however,  that  it  will  cripple  the  circula 
tion  of  the  Liberator,  by  being  put  at  so  low  a  rate."  ' 
1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  389. 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF    195 

At  first  it  was  edited  by  various  members  of 
the  society,  but  in  1841,  Lydia  Maria  Child  as 
sumed  charge.  Like  the  Liberator  the  Standard  out 
lived  the  Civil  War,  during  which  period  Oliver 
Johnson  and  Edmund  Quincy  were  the  efficient 
editors. 

As  a  final  note  of  triumph,  it  was  voted  by  the 
American  Society,  before  adjourning,  to  send  Gar 
rison  and  his  devoted  adherent,  N.  P.  Eogers, 
C.  L.  Eemond,  an  accomplished  man  of  color,  and 
Lucretia  Mott  as  delegates  to  the  World's  Anti- 
Slavery  Convention  to  be  opened  in  London  on  June 
12,  1840. 

Notwithstanding  that  the  majority  made  "clean 
work  of  everything  .  .  .  with  crashing  una 
nimity,"  to  use  Garrison's  words,  and  that  the 
excitement  had  been  keen,  it  is  noticeable  that 
these  sounds  of  tumult  seem  not  to  have  penetrated 
far  westward.  Even  in  those  days,  the  West  was 
settling  matters  in  its  own  way  and  was  not  a 
dependency,  socially  or  politically,  on  the  East,  to 
which,  however,  it  still  looked  with  respect  in 
intellectual  matters.  The  "  proper  position  of 
females"  did  not  much  concern  a  wide  territory 
where,  from  the  beginning,  women  had  exhibited 
equally  with  men  the  fortitude  and  self-sacrifice 
necessary  to  subdue  the  forces  of  a  wilderness.  The 
slight  impression  that  this  schism  in  the  American 
An ti- Slavery  Society  caused  outside  of  the  North 
ern  Atlantic  states  deepens  one's  conviction,  in 
considering  the  anti-slavery  movement  from  the 
start,  that  the  various  communities  in  western  New 


196          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISON 

York  and  all  those  west  of  Pennsylvania  went 
about  the  grave  business  of  abolition  largely  in 
their  own  way.  Garrison's  was  certainly  a  name 
in  Ohio,  as  it  was  elsewhere,  and  he  exercised  a 
potent  moral  influence,  but  did  not  there  determine 
policies  or  occasion  feuds  and  cabals  to  disturb  the 
momentum  of  a  great  cause.  Anti-slavery  was,  in 
fact,  organically  democratic  rather  than  federalistic, 
and  did  not  tend  especially  toward  centralization. 
The  intense  individualism  of  many  of  its  followers 
would  in  a  measure  explain  this.  Perhaps  we  may 
better  call  it  congregational  in  its  structure  so  far  as 
the  cohesion  and  the  interdependence  of  its  con 
tinually  increasing  societies  or  organizations  are 
concerned. 

If  detailed  biographical  narrative  were  the  pur 
pose  of  this  book,  it  would  be  a  pleasant  task  to 
follow  Mr.  Garrison  and  his  companions  across  the 
water  in  the  "fine  large  ship  Columbus,"  which 
sailed  for  Liverpool  on  May  22d  ;  accompany  them  to 
London  and  share  the  excitement  of  the  convention, 
which  they  reached  on  June  17th,  five  days  after  it 
had  begun  ;  and  finally  to  learn  more  of  their  fore 
gathering  with  some  of  the  distinguished  men  and 
women,  who  were  keeping  the  spirit  of  reform 
ablaze  in  England. 

But,  eventful  as  was  this  journey  in  the  per 
sonal  life  of  the  great  Abolitionist,  it  must  suffice 
to  give  here  only  its  essential  incidents.  Anx 
iously  leaving  his  wife,  who  was  within  a  short 
time  of  another  confinement,  he  did  not  fail  to  im 
prove  the  occasion  of  his  voyage  by  commiserating 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF    197 

the  condition  of  the  sailors,  as  well  he  might  in 
those  days,  administering  "burning  rebukes "  to 
the  sinful  passengers  who  passed  the  time  l  i  swear 
ing,  drinking  and  smoking  " — equal  offenses  in  his 
eyes — and  not  failing  to  drive  home  the  horrors  of 
slavery  and  all  oppressions  of  humanity.  Eemond, 
on  account  of  his  color,  was  sent  forward  by  the 
captain,  a  Virginian,  to  the  steerage  ;  here  he  was 
joined  by  William  Adams,  a  Scotch  Quaker  from 
Ehode  Island  and  a  delegate,  who  was  penalized  for 
objecting  to  the  harsh  treatment  of  a  sailor.  Non- 
Resistant  doctrine  seems  to  have  had  its  valuable 
side  for  some  of  the  passengers  in  the  good  ship 
Columbus. 

By  decision  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  no  tickets  of  admission  to  Free 
masons'  Hall  had  been  issued  to  the  women 
delegates.  On  the  opening  of  the  convention, 
Wendell  Phillips,  representing  the  Massachusetts 
Anti-Slavery  Society  which  had  sent,  as  delegates, 
among  others,  Harriet  Martiueau,  Maria  Chapman, 
Lydia  Maria  Child,  Abby  Kelley,  Emily  Wiuslow 
and  Mrs.  Wendell  Phillips,  moved  the  appointment 
of  a  committee  instructed  to  include  the  names  of 
all  persons  bearing  credentials  from  any  anti- 
slavery  society.  The  Philadelphia  Anti- Slavery 
Society  had  sent  as  delegates  Lucretia  Mott  and 
four  other  women,  all  Quakers  except  one.  Both 
American  societies,  in  so  doing,  had  acted  with  full 
knowledge  that  a  member  of  the  executive  commit 
tee  of  the  British  society  had  discouraged  the  in 
clusion  of  any  women  as  delegates.  Dr.  John, 


198          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISON 

Bowring  and  William  Henry  Ashurst  were  the 
most  prominent  Englishmen  to  support  Phillips, 
who  " refused  to  have  a  World's  Convention 
measured  by  an  English  yardstick."  George 
Thompson,  not  showing  the  same  implacable  spirit 
on  his  own  soil  as  he  did  in  America,  urged  that 
the  motion  be  withdrawn.  The  British  clergy, 
leaning  back  heavily  on  Holy  Writ  and  Saint  Paul, 
sparkled  tersely  on  woman's  proper  sphere.  The 
motion  was  lost,  but  Mr.  Phillips  did  not  bolt  the 
convention.  Garrison  on  his  arrival  decided  to  do 
nothing  to  disturb  the  remaining  three  days  of  the 
session,  and  sat  in  the  gallery — a  very  Hamlet, 
watching  from  above  a  drama  of  which  he  was  the 
chief  and  necessary  character.  He  must  have  been 
cheered  by  the  thought,  for  he  had  abundant  fun  in 
his  disposition,  that  Polonius  would  be  fully  repre 
sented  by  the  New  Orgauizationists,  who  had 
without  doubt  inspired  the  British  society  to  its 
conservative  stand.  He  could  not  be  lured  from 
this  coign  of  vantage,  but  did  not  lack  company, 
for  on  the  second  day  Lady  Byron  sought  out  both 
him  and  Eemond.  Bowring  had  Garrison  to 
breakfast  and  Miss  Martineau  thought  he  was 
"  quite  right  to  sit  in  the  gallery."  The  great 
Daniel  O' Council,  a  rock  on  all  anti-slavery  mat 
ters,  sided  with  the  banished  ones,  calling  the 
exclusion  "a  cowardly  sacrifice  of  principle  to  a 
vulgar  prej  udice. ' ? 

In  spite  of  this  episode,  which  colored  the  whole 
convention  and  tended  to  minimize  the  purpose  for 
which  it  met,  there  were  brought  out  good  anti- 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF   199 

slavery  sentiment  and  searching  criticism  of  the 
supine  attitude  of  the  churches.  If  women  proved 
unacceptable  in  their  councils  to  the  slow-paced 
British  mind,  the  English  were  not  lacking  in  hos 
pitality,  and  heard  Eemond,  late  from  an  Ameri 
can  steerage  cabin,  with  enthusiasm.  "  Prejudice 
against  color  is  unknown  here,"  Garrison  had  the 
pleasure  of  writing  to  his  wife,  by  this  time  the 
mothep  of  a  "fine  boy,"  Wendell  Phillips  Garri 
son,  who  inherited  many  of  the  noble  qualities  of 
his  parents.1 

Meeting  in  a  pleasant  way  with  Amelia  Opie, 
Elizabeth  Pease,  Elizabeth  Fry,  the  Howitts, 
O'Connell,  Thomas  Fowell  Buxton,  Robert  Owen, 
Samuel  Gurney,  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland  and  her 
brother  Lord  Morpeth,  Benjamin  Haydou,  the  artist, 
and  other  notable  and  worthy  persons,  Garrison's 
stay  rapidly  drew  to  an  end,  and  he  sailed  back  on 
August  4th,  but  not  until  he  had  made  an  excursion 
to  Edinburgh,  where  he  addressed  an  immense  tem 
perance  meeting.  He  found  time  to  write  a  long 
letter  to  Joseph  Pease,  the  English  Quaker  Aboli 
tionist,  in  which  he  elaborated  his  doctrine  of  peace 
and  the  use  of  moral  and  religious  measures  for  the 
suppression  of  evil.  He  also  urged  England  to  pur 
chase  only  cotton  raised  by  free  labor,  and  to  keep 
up  the  policy  for  seven  years,  at  the  expiration  of 
which  period  "  American  slavery  would  be  peace 
ably  abolished." 

^e  died  in  1905,  after  an  editorship  of  forty  years  on  The 
Nation,  where  he  always  displayed  a  patience  and  a  sense  of  jus 
tice,  equal  to  his  father's,  as  well  as  an  ability  wholly  his  own. 


200          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

Garrison  thoroughly  enjoyed  himself  in  Scotland, 
which  he  seemed  to  prefer  to  England  ;  for  the  fear 
ful  contrasts  of  luxury  and  grim  want  in  England 
distressed  his  sympathetic  soul.  He  had  a  few 
memorable  days  in  Ireland,  where  he  and  his  friends 
u  spread  a  glorious  contagion,"  according  to  Rich 
ard  Webb,  an  Irish  Quaker  and  a  printer  of  ster 
ling  worth  as  well  as  sound  anti-slavery  principles. 
For  him  and  for  his  wife  Hannah,  Garrison  cher 
ished  an  affection  which  endured  to  their  end. 
Their  son,  Alfred  Webb,  was  also  of  the  faith,  and 
many  years  later  was  a  valued  contributor,  under 
the  signature  of  "D.  B.,"  to  The  Nation  during  the 
editorship  of  W.  P.  Garrison. 

Leaving  Liverpool  on  August  4th,  the  never-rest 
ing  agitator  was  back  in  time  to  be  present  at  a  re 
ception  given  him  in  Maryborough  Chapel,  Boston, 
on  August  20th,  "the  first  instance  of  a  mixed  as 
sembly  [of  white  and  black]  being  thus  brought  to 
gether  in  Boston."1  He  found  large  occasion,  as 
many  Americans  have  found  before  and  since,  to 
rejoice  that  he  was  born  in  the  United  States— in 
spite  of  the  territorial  magnificence  of  the  Libera 
tor'1  $  motto — where  he  could  deal  with  the  people 
and  not  with  classes.  He  asked  his  colored  friends 
to  sympathize  with  the  misery  of  other  races,  es 
pecially  with  the  "poor,  oppressed  Irish,"  for 
whom  he  always  seemed  to  feel  a  particular  solici 
tude,  though,  as  immigrants  in  this  country,  they 
made  him  but  poor  return  for  his  loyalty.  They 

1  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  407. 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF   201 

had  serious  problems  of  their  own  to  absorb  their 
attention  during  the  anti-slavery  period. 

Well- satisfied  with  his  trip  abroad,  during  which 
he  had  not  failed  to  "sift  into"  other  minds  his 
various  heterodoxies,  particularly  non-resistance 
and  total  abstinence,  Garrison  on  his  return  had 
to  face  the  fact  that  many  Abolitionists,  as  sound  as 
himself,  had  come  to  feel  that  the  heated  presiden 
tial  election  of  1840  demanded  more  of  them  than 
zeal  for  ethical  abstractions.  Even  the  devoted 
Samuel  E.  Sewall  deserted  the  field  of  political 
inaction.  Many  were  Whigs  or  Democrats  before 
they  were  baptized  into  Abolitionism  and  these  felt 
the  urgent  call  of  party  ;  while  some,  deserting  both 
early  affiliations  and  the  sincere  milk  of  Garrison- 
iauisrn,  turned  toward  the  Liberty  party.  "  Polit 
ically  intoxicated,"  the  champion  of  an  absolute 
standard  in  a  shifting  democracy  was  only  too  ready 
to  call  them. 

With  the  national  society  out  of  funds,  its  offi 
cial  organ  struggling  hard  for  life,  the  Standard  in 
extremities,  and  tried  and  true  friends  rnakiog  ready 
to  hie  to  the  detested  polls,  one  might  suppose  that 
Garrison  was  distressed  by  such  ominous  condi 
tions  ;  but  if  he  was,  his  letters  and  public  utter 
ances  show  no  flinching.  Even  when  his  flat  purse 
and  its  small  contents  disappeared  after  a  thinly  at 
tended  convention  in  Worcester,  early  in  October, 
he,  with  that  excellent  humor  of  his,  only  said  that 
he  felt  like  an  animal,  "  denuded  of  its  fur,"  and 
renewed  his  trust  in  the  Lord.  He  did  not  neglect, 
however,  to  encourage  the  departure  of  John  A. 


202          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

Collins,  general  agent  of  the  Massachusetts  So 
ciety,  to  obtain  money  to  replenish  the  anti-slavery 
finances.  Collins  was  followed  across  the  water  by 
what  seems  even  at  this  day  like  malice  on  the  part 
of  the  Eev.  Nathaniel  Colver,  and  was  met  in  Eng 
land  by  the  opposition  of  Captain  Charles  Stuart, 
now  hostile  to  the  Garrisonian  program. 

Meanwhile  Garrison  had  brought  upon  himself 
more  odium  of  infidelity  by  becoming  identified 
with  a  movement  of  a  curiously  mixed  organization 
that  set  out  to  reach  a  spiritual  principle  and  fun 
damental  truth  in  the  field  of  denominational  differ 
ences.  Through  uncouth  efforts  in  meetings  or 
" conventions,"  as  all  assemblages  in  those  days 
seem  to  have  been  called,  it  invited  free  discussion 
of  a  jumble  of  religious  and  non-religious  theories 
and  fancies.  Though  this  movement  did  not  origi 
nate  with  him,  it  found  in  Garrison  a  vigorous  and 
most  conspicuous  adherent.  It  had  its  beginnings 
with  the  tl  Friends  of  Christian  Union,"  in  a  meet 
ing  at  Groton,  Mass.,  in  August,  1840,  while  Garri 
son  was  on  the  Atlantic.  Every  person  who  had  or 
thought  he  had  an  idea  to  contribute  flung  it  into 
the  bubbling  cauldron  of  "free  discussion." 
Later  the  "  Friends  of  Universal  Keform"  decided 
to  hold  a  second  meeting  in  order  to  "examine  the 
validity  of  the  views  which  generally  prevail  in  this 
country  as  to  the  divine  appointment  of  the  first  day 
of  the  week  as  the  Christian  Sabbath,  and  to  inquire 
into  the  origin,  nature,  and  authority  of  the  minis 
try  and  the  Church,  as  now  existing."  The  result 
of  the  call  was  the  Chardon  Street  Convention,  held 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF    203 

November  17-19,  1840 ;  it  was  the  most  famous  of 
the  many  meetings  at  that  temple  of  free  discussion, 
the  Chardon  Street  Chapel,  in  Boston. 

Kalph  Waldo  Emerson,  who  saw  not  too  closely 
from  his  serene  height  the  ironic  and  fantastic 
shows  of  human  nature,  was  not  too  remote  to  poke 
benignant  fun  at  the  extravagancies  then  rife,  even 
when  he  sympathized  mildly  with  the  principles 
underlying,  and  in  this  spirit  of  seraphic  bantering 
he  describes  the  gathering:  "The  singularity  and 
latitude  of  the  summons  drew  together,  from  all 
parts  of  New  England  and  also  from  the  Middle 
States,  men  of  every  shade  of  opinion  from  the 
straitest  orthodoxy  to  the  wildest  heresy,  and  many 
persons  whose  church  was  a  church  of  one  member 
only.  A  great  variety  of  dialect  and  of  costume 
was  noticed  ;  a  great  deal  of  confusion,  eccentricity, 
and  freak  appeared,  as  well  as  of  zeal  and  enthu 
siasm.  If  the  assembly  was  disorderly,  it  was  pic 
turesque.  Madmen,  madwomen,  men  with  beards, 
Bunkers,  Muggletonians,  Come-outers,  Groaners, 
Agrarians,  Seventh-Day  Baptists,  Quakers,  Aboli 
tionists,  Calvinists,  Unitarians,  and  Philosophers, 
— all  came  successively  to  the  top,  and  seized  their 
moment,  if  not  their  hour,  wherein  to  chide,  or 
pray,  or  preach,  or  protest.'7 1 

The  proceedings  of  the  convention,  different  in  no 
essential  way  from,  other  manifestations  of  the  gen 
eral  restlessness  then  epidemic,  would  demand  no 
mention  in  detail  here  were  it  not  for  the  conspicu 
ous  part  Garrison  played  during  these  three  days  of 

1  Emerson,  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches,  p.  351. 


204          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

discussion, — discussion  without  conclusion  or  the 
adoption  of  any  resolution.  Among  the  signers  of 
the  call  were  some  names  not  identified  with  the 
old-time  radicals,  such  as  Theodore  Parker  and 
William  Henry  Channing,  more  representative  of 
the  Unitarian  "left"  than  of  anything  else  ;  George 
Kipley,  then  on  the  eve  of  his  Brook  Farm  ven 
ture  ;  James  Russell  Lowell,  just  of  age  and  through 
the  Harvard  Law  School ;  the  poet  Crauch  ;  and  as 
a  looker-on,  Dr.  Channiug.  The  various  conserva 
tive  points  of  view  of  the  Sabbath  as  the  one  day  of 
the  week  to  be  kept  especially  holy  were  fully  rep 
resented,  while  Garrison  took  the  lead  in  advocat 
ing  the  Sabbath -every -day  heresy.  "There  was 
less  boring,  on  the  whole,  than  we  had  a  right  to 
expect, "  writes  Edmund  Quincy  of  this  deliberative 
assemblage  of  which  no  authoritative  report  exists. 
Father  Taylor,  one  of  the  extraordinary  and  elo 
quent  personalities  of  the  day  in  Boston,  and  Abby 
Folsom  and  Dr.  Mellen,  both  mentally  disturbed 
trouble-makers  in  all  public  gatherings  where  they 
were  suffered  to  speak,  used  the  full  privileges  of  a 
convention  under  no  definite  control. 

It  is  of  interest  to  observe  that  when  it  was  pro 
posed  to  limit  the  argument  to  the  discussion  of  the 
teachings  of  the  Bible  on  the  subject  of  the  meet 
ings,  Garrison  supported  the  motion,  which  failed 
of  adoption.  He  argued  that  since  the  Bible  was 
the  only  source  from  which  any  idea  of  a  Sabbath, 
a  church,  or  a  ministry  could  come,  therefore  the 
Bible  alone  must  be  the  foundation  for  all  con 
sideration  of  the  topics  proposed.  At  the  first 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF    205 

Chardon  Street  convention  the  Sabbath  was  the 
only  subject  discussed.  The  chief  supporters  of 
the  divine  authority  for  observing  the  first  day  of 
the  week  were  two  Abolitionist  clergymen  of  the 
wing  opposed  to  Garrison,  the  Eev.  John  Pierpont 
and  the  Rev.  A.  A.  Phelps,  his  earlier  fellow 
lecturer,  for  whose  candor  and  logical  power  he 
had  great  respect.  Garrison  took  the  lead  on  the 
other  side,  on  the  ground  that  the  coming  of  Jesus 
had  abolished  the  duty  of  observing  the  Sabbath  as 
being  part  of  the  ceremonial  obligation  of  the  Old 
Law.  This  law  Jesus  had  come  not  to  destroy  but 
to  fulfil  by  substituting  for  its  formal  requirements 
a  higher  spiritual  obligation.  The  Christian,  in 
Garrison's  view,  was  bound  to  sanctify  all  days 
alike  by  sanctifying  the  whole  of  life. 

The  Eev.  Nathaniel  Colver  was  among  his  ad 
versaries  at  these  meetings,  and  just  after  their 
close  he  sent  two  letters  to  members  of  the  London 
Committee,  not  only,  as  has  been  seen,  discrediting 
Collins,  as  agent  of  the  Massachusetts  society,  but 
also  charging  Garrison  with  heading  "  an  infidel 
convention,"  picking  up  "  every  infidel  fanaticism 
afloat,"  and  joining  with  "  no-marriage  perfection 
ists,  transcendentalists,  Cape  Cod  [come- outers  (!)]  " 
in  an  attack  on  the  Bible  and  the  ministry.  These 
letters  came  to  Garrison's  hands,  and  lie  commented 
on  them  with  a  burst  of  wrath  which  closed  as 
follows:  "My  friends  in  England  may  rest  as 
sured  that  this  pretended  zeal  of  Nathaniel  Colver 
for  the  institutions  of  religion,  and  this  slanderous 
assault  upon  my  religious  views,  proceed  from 


206          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKEISON 

personal  animosity  toward  myself ;  nor  would  they 
be  led  astray  by  any  false  statements  he  might  bo 
disposed  to  make,  if  they  knew  him  as  well  as  he  i  3 
known  at  home  by  those  who  are  able  to  discrimi 
nate  between  the  form  of  holiness  and  the  powe^ 
of  it."1 

Once  more  Garrison  was  gleefully  afforded  by 
his  enemies  an  opportunity  to  place  himself  in  such 
a  position  that  he  would  make  no  converts,  but 
merely  alienate  some  hesitating  souls,  already  be 
ginning  to  doubt  him  as  a  safe  guide.  There  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  Garrison  was  in  any  way 
deluded  by  what  was  going  on.  If  he  remained  o  ' 
brave  heart  at  this  time,  writing  more  sonnets  and 
keeping  up  the  old  editorial  vigor,  it  was  largely 
because  he  had  not  yet  seen  any  new  light  to  per 
suade  him  to  alter  his  course,  dark  as  it  may  hav  3 
been.  The  Liberty  party's  small  showing  at  the 
national  election  was  to  have  been  foreseen,  and  its 
efforts  brought  no  conviction  to  his  mind  that  ho 
ought  to  involve  himself  in  the  movement  and  in 
the  necessary  limitations  and  obligations  entailed 
on  any  party  allegiance.  But  as  the  filial  biogra 
phers  have  wisely  admitted,  the  rise  of  this  little 
party  u  marks  the  end  of  the  expansion  of  tho 
purely  moral  organization  of  the  anti-slavery  senti 
ment  of  the  country."  2 

From  this  point  on  we  shall  have  to  consider 
Garrisonianism  in  relation  to  the  other  advancing 
efforts  to  oppose  not  only  slavery  itself,  but  the 

1  Liberator,  Vol.  XI.  p.  19  (Jan.  29,  1841).  , 
8  Life,  Vol.  II,  p.  434. 


A  HOUSE  DIVIDING  AGAINST  ITSELF    207 

manifestation  of  the  slave  power.  This  power  was 
contending  in  a  great  game  in  which  the  states  and 
territories  were  the  squares  and  statesmen  and 
their  parties  were  the  figures  to  be  played.  Its 
opponents  were  not,  so  it  was  believed,  a  handful 
of  men  and  women  in  Boston  chapels  disintegrating 
what  union  they  had  among  themselves  by  futile 
Sabbatarian,  perfectionist,  non-resistant  and  other 
mad  doctrines.  Eather  was  the  rest  of  the  country 
now  beginuiog  to  feel  dimly  than  to  think  clearly  that 
the  union  of  states  must  be  saved  by  removing  from 
democratic  government  a  powerful  and  irreconcil 
able  element,  an  imperium  in  repubUca,  to  be  elimi 
nated  only  by  slow  constitutional  and  political  proc 
esses  or  else  by  the  swifter  methods  of  force.  Any 
increasing  solidarity  of  action  by  this  democratic 
body  was  cause  for  anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  slave 
power,  well  equipped  with  resourceful  and  com 
petent  intellects.  The  movement  rising  in  central 
New  York,  impotent  as  it  proved  to  be  in  its  first 
electorial  try-out,  was  of  more  concern  to  the  tide- 
waiters  of  politics  than  was  any  "moral  organiza 
tion,"  all  the  paths  of  which  were  peace.  The 
foolishness  of  preaching  once  more  seemed  doomed 
to  meet  its  usual  fate  from  a  froward  generation. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  INFIDEL   GAUKISON 

IT  is  fitting  at  this  point  to  fall  back  a  little  and 
retrace  somewhat  carefully  the  steps  by  which  Gar 
rison  had  arrived  at  so  great  an  alienation  from  be 
liefs  once  formally  cherished  by  him.  The  mere 
annals  of  biography  do  not  altogether  supply  the 
enlightenment  necessary  to  avoid  a  misjudgment 
of  his  career  at  this  crisis. 

Up  to  1835  he  had  arraigned  the  churches  for  be 
ing  false  to  their  mission,  but  felt  and  uttered  no 
disturbing  unorthodox  sentiments.  Between  that 
year  and  1840  he  followed  a  path  of  rapid  departure 
from  the  accepted  religious  ideas  of  his  day,  until 
he  had  reached  a  position  far  from  any  kind  of  or 
thodoxy,  however  vaguely  defined.  Naturally,  he 
ceased  in  time  to  have  any  connection  with  organ 
ized  religious  activity,  except  that  he  attended  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  creedless  body  of  "Progress 
ive  Friends.7'  Devout  by  nature,  he  came  to  live 
his  religious  life  so  entirely  with  the  spirit  that  he 
found  every  incarnation  of  the  faith  which  was  a 
force  within  him  inadequate  to  express  his  passion 
for  righteousness.  According  to  Cardinal  Newman, 
heresiarchs,  among  whom  Garrison  must  surely  be 
reckoned,  are  commonly  men  of  singular  purity  of 
character,  who,  seizing  upon  some  neglected  article 
of  faith  or  morals,  make  it  the  dominant  element  of 


THE  INFIDEL  GAEEISON  209 

life,  instead  of  one  among  many  parts  in  the  mani 
fold  unity  of  perfection.  To  the  orthodox,  that  is 
to  say,  to  those  who  accept  a  traditional  faith  and 
an  established  ideal  of  conduct,  such  men  are  of 
course  abominable.  To  proclaim  a  standard  of  con 
duct  severer  than  the  one  commonly  accepted  is  in 
itself  wounding  to  the  sensibilities  of  all  those  who 
do  not  adopt  the  new  doctrines.  It  strikes  at  the 
very  heart  of  the  professional  teaching  of  morals. 

By  those  who  hold  to  traditional  beliefs,  the  vi 
sions  of  new  or  neglected  truth,  the  heresies  of  too 
ardent  a  desire  for  perfect  holiness,  are  looked  upon 
as  constituting  a  more  pernicious  infidelity  than  the 
deadness  of  mere  unfaith.  They  are  pregnant  with 
obscure  and  dangerous  implications.  They  gener 
ally  express  an  independent  way  of  viewing  life,- 
which,  not  clearly  perceived  by  the  leaders  who  put 
them  forward,  is  later  brought  distinctly  into  con 
sciousness,  and  proves  destructive  to  ancient  forms 
of  faith.  So  it  had  been  with  Garrison.  At  first 
embracing  an  evangelical  Christianity,  but  with  a 
living  belief,  not  with  the  half-belief  of  the  average 
conformist,  whose  compromise  with  the  world  is  in 
fused  through  his  whole  moral  being,  he  had 
banned  church  and  clergy  for  cowardice  and  moral 
blindness  in  failing  to  do  their  duty  when  judged 
by  the  standards  of  their  own  professed  doctrines. 
Later,  he  found  the  orthodox  formulas  themselves 
inadequate,  and  brought  on  himself  the  charge  of 
infidelity.  With  the  passage  of  years,  he  put  for 
ward  his  beliefs  more  connectedly  and  prominently, 
and  accordingly  provoked  to  increased  energy  the 


210          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

indignation  due  to  the  severity  of  bis  rebukes  and  to 
his  heresies.  Gradually,  too,  he  brought  all  parts  of 
his  moral  and  intellectual  activity  into  close  co 
herence. 

One  feature  of  Garrison's  nature  was  an  extreme 
simplicity  of  constitution,  which  caused  his  acts  to 
be  the  immediate  symbols  of  his  thought  and  faith. 
Faiths  were  to  him  not  mere  intellectual  convic 
tions,  but  controlling  powers  in  his  life.  He  had 
no  conception  of  a  belief  accepted  and  not  acted  upon. 
He  had  not  in  the  slightest  degree  a  "problematic  na 
ture"  ;  there  were  no  complicating  obstructions  be 
tween  his  mind  and  his  life.  He  could  never  have 
understood  the  saying:  "The  thing  that  I  would 
not,  that  I  do."  There  is  no  greater  source  of  cour 
age,  power,  and  joy  than  a  nature  like  Garrison's. 
He  was  confident  in  defeat,  serene  in  the  midst  of 
annoyances;  happy  without  indifference,  even  when 
the  vision  of  human  injustice  was  before  his  eyes  ; 
and  authoritative  as  a  messenger  from  God,  no  mat 
ter  how  men  might  assail  and  events  might  seem  to 
discredit  his  teachings.  He  took  to  himself  with 
implicit  confidence  the  belief  that  Jesus  is  the 
model  and  inspirer  of  life,  and  put  his  faith  into 
practice  by  laboring  for  the  slave.  Surely,  it 
seemed  to  him,  He  whose  special  mission  on  earth 
was  to  the  humble  and  the  despised,  who  offended 
the  social  prejudices  of  His  age  by  eating  with  pub 
licans  and  sinners,  would  not  have  left  the  slave 
outside  the  sphere  of  His  sympathies.  He  who 
came  to  give  light  to  the  world  would  not  have  en 
dured  the  walling  off  of  millions  of  men  from  the 


THE  INFIDEL  GAKRISON  211 

light  shining  for  others.  He  whose  function  was 
to  elevate  manhood  and  to  inculcate  the  dignity  of 
the  individual  soul  would  not  have  been  satisfied  to 
leave  the  souls  of  millions  in  bondage.  Garrison, 
in  his  bitter  condemnation  of  slaveholders  and  his 
savage  rebukes  of  the  clergy  who  condoned  slave- 
holding,  felt  himself  but  the  follower  of  Him  who 
taught  a  noble  wrath  by  His  denunciation  of  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees,  the  clerical  respectability  of 
His  age,  and  who  drove  out  the  money-changers 
from  the  fore- court  of  the  temple,  where  they  had 
a  prescriptive  right  to  be.  Likewise  he  thought 
himself  the  follower  of  Him  who  came  to  bring  not 
peace  but  a  sword,  in  promulgating  the  one  gospel 
of  the  day  which  had  the  power  to  set  clearly  oppo 
site  to  each  other  the  forces  of  light  and  darkness  in 
American  life. 

The  Church,  in  glory  and  agony,  is  perpetually 
bringing  forth  children  whom  she  must  perpetu 
ally  disown.  She  teaches  an  uncompromising 
personal  holiness ;  the  germs  at  least  of  an  ascetic, 
communistic,  even  anarchistic  ideal  are  to  be  traced 
in  her  Founder's  life  and  teachings.  Ardent  and 
logical  souls  in  every  generation  are  thus  provoked 
to  revolt  or  to  separate  from,  the  accepted  order.  Yet 
the  Church,  being  planned  for  permanence,  is  inevi 
tably  conservative.  As  it  essays  to  stimulate  and 
guide  sentiment  and  emotion,  it  must  be  supported 
by  sentiments  and  emotions  already  formed  and 
fixed.  It  cannot  shock  its  members  by  teaching  a 
new  or  a  forgotten  truth  for  which  they  are  not  pre 
pared.  In  the  nature  of  things  the  cloth  opposed 


212          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKltlSON 

Garrison,  while  at  the  same  time  the  source  of  his 
abolitionism  was  Christian  faith,  his  arguments 
were  at  bottom  theological,  and  his  strongest  sup 
porters  were  either  in  the  ministry  or  had  prepared 
for  it. 

To  Garrison,  the  lack  of  moral  initiative  in  the 
Church  and  the  ministry  seemed  like  recreancy  and 
practical  apostasy.  It  was,  indeed,  in  his  mind  the 
Unpardonable  Sin,  blasphemy  against  the  Holy 
Spirit,  vulgar  anathematization  of  the  inspiration 
of  God  as  revealed  in  the  only  overpower! ugly  im 
portant  message  of  the  time  to  the  American  peo 
ple.  To  those  ministers  who,  by  failing  to  con 
demn  slavery,  were  in  his  mind  not  delivering  the 
essential  truth  for  their  time,  he  applied  Isaiah's 
name  for  the  prophets  who  did  not  fulfil  their  mis 
sion — "Dumb  Dogs."  Looking  upon  the  Church 
as  a  reality  only  so  far  as  it  was  the  depositary  of 
truth,  the  incarnation  of  a  faith,  he  proclaimed  that 
any  church  which  admitted  the  slaveholder  to  its 
communion  had  ipso  facto  cut  itself  off  from  coni- 
rnunion  with,  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  and  that  all  true 
Christians  must  have  no  fellowship  with  it. 

The  condemnation  of  the  actual  Church  and  the 
reprobation  of  the  actual  ministry,  however  irritat 
ing  to  Garrison's  opponents,  did  not  imply  depart 
ure  from  established  doctrinal  standards.  In  point 
of  fact,  Garrison  abandoned  them  only  one  at  a 
time.  The  attitude  of  the  clergy  upon  slavery 
forced  upon  him  the  question  of  the  authority  of  the 
clergy,  and  the  official  action  of  various  denomina 
tions  obliged  him  to  consider  the  relation  of  the  be- 


THE  INFIDEL  GABBISON  213 

liever  to  the  depositary  of  faith  when  that  was  it 
self  recreant  to  the  truth. 

Garrison  repelled  with  energy  the  charge  that  he 
was  an  infidel,  proclaiming  in  effect  that  his  theol 
ogy  was  that  of  the  Friends,  and  declaring  his  rev 
erence  for  the  "true  authority"  of  the  Scriptures  j 
— "they  are  my  text-book,  and  worth  all  the  other 
books  in  the  universe. ' ' 

The  immediate  object  of  Colver's  attack  on  him 
after  the  Chardon  Street  Convention  of  November, 
1840,  was  to  discredit  him  in  the  minds  of  his  Eng 
lish  supporters.  As  a  purely  moral  agitation,  the 
cause  of  anti-slavery  had  claimed  and  received  the 
aid  in  money  and  activity  of  the  friends  of  man 
throughout  the  world,  and  especially  in  England. 
The  attack  met  with  instantaneous  success.  Col 
lins  wrote  home  to  Garrison,  "  Woman's  rights  and 
nou-governrnentisin  are  quite  respectable  when  com 
pared  to  your  views."  Garrison  was  there  regarded 
as  a  follower  of  Owen,  as  a  socialist  and  a  free-lover  ; 
and  the  opposition  to  him  grew  so  strong  that  his 
adherents  on  the  London  Committee  were  held  by 
their  opponents  as  personally  unfriendly  and  as  un 
faithful  to  the  cause. 

Torrey  and  Phelps,  both  ministers  of  the  Gospel, 
supported  Colver's  charges,  and  combining  all  the 
obnoxious  ideas  of  the  day,  no-government,  woman's 
rights,  no-marriage,  non-resistance, — into  one  amal 
gam  of  horrid  beliefs,  strove  to  fasten  the  corrosive 
mass  upon  Garrison.  It  is  no  wonder  that  it  adhered. 
The  public  never  makes  fine  distinctions.  And  in 
a  generation  when  decorating  a  church  with  flow- 


214          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

ers  was  widely  denounced  as  desecration,  it  would 
have  been  too  much  to  expect  Garrison's  radical 
views  of  religion  not  to  be  regarded  as  tantamount 
to  infidelity. 

Garrison,  in  the  meantime,  moved  by  his  simple 
and  undisturbed  faith  in  the  power  of  truth  and  the 
lightness  of  the  world,  did  not  hesitate  to  realize 
the  needs  of  his  soul  by  pursuing  the  path  upon 
which  he  had  begun  to  walk.  Though  he  had 
nothing  to  do  with  calling  the  first  Chardou  Street 
meeting,  he  moved  the  convening  of  a  second  in 
March,  1841,  to  discuss  the  origin  and  authority  of 
the  ministry.  He  did  not  address  this  convention, 
but  exerted  a  potent  influence  in  guiding  its  activi 
ties,  and  later  expressed  the  most  anti-ecclesiastical 
views  on  the  subject. 

At  a  third  and  the  last  convention,  held  October 
26-28,  1841,  the  Church  was  discussed,  and  Garri 
son's  mystic  idealism  and  individualistic  spirit  are 
expressed  in  the  resolutions  introduced  by  him. 
They  contain  affirmations,  ' l  that  the  true  Church  is 
independent  of  all  human  organizations,  creeds,  or 
compacts  .  .  .  that  it  is  not  in  the  province  of 
any  man,  or  any  body  of  men,  to  admit  or  to  ex 
clude  from  that  Church  any  one  who  is  created  in 
the  divine  image  ;  .  .  .  that  it  is  nowhere  en 
joined,  by  Christ  or  His  apostles,  upon  any  man 
that  he  should  connect  himself  with  any  associa 
tion,  by  whatever  name  called ;  but  all  are  left  to 
act  singly,  or  in  conjunction  with  others,  according 
to  their  own  free  choice."  } 

1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  7-8. 


THE  INFIDEL  GAKBISON  215 

The  distinct  heresies  of  Garrison  upon  the  stand 
ards  and  the  constitution  of  the  Church  were  much 
less  fundamental  and  provoked  less  opposition  than 
two  other  articles  of  his  creed, — u  perfectionism  " 
and  "  non-resistance,'7  already  referred  to,  but  of 
which  somewhat  fuller  mention  must  now  be  made. 
While  the  logical  basis  and  relationships  of  these 
doctrines  are  simple  and  easily  explained,  their 
actual  genesis  in  American  life,  the  way  in  which 
they  were  viewed  in  the  time  of  Garrison,  and  their 
relation  to  the  many  diverse  tendencies  of  that 
divided  age  are  extremely  complicated.  Their 
ultimate  source  is  the  French  rationalism  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  But  as  hitherto  stated,  the 
spread  in  America  of  the  conception  of  perfec 
tionism  was  due  mainly  to  the  preaching  of  John 
H.  Noyes,  a  man  whose  influence  on  Garrison 
is  clearly  traceable,  and  who  is  best  known  as  the 
founder  of  the  Oueida  Community.  The  doctrine 
of  the  obligation  of  moral  perfection  is  suscept 
ible  of  many  interpretations.  It  may  mean  that 
as  he  who  is  regenerate  is  capable  of  fulfilling 
the  whole  law  ;  any  who  fail  at  any  point  are  not 
truly  regenerate, — in  other  words,  that  the  grace 
of  the  regenerate  is  indefeasible  and  perfect.  Such 
a  doctrine  may  easily  result  in  spiritual  pride  and 
a  harsh  and  gloomy  contempt  for  mankind.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  same  doctrine  is  consistent  with 
the  teaching  that  perfection  is  a  matter  of  the 
heart,  and  that  the  conduct  of  the  regenerate  man, 
no  matter  what  it  is,  cannot  be  wrong.  Such  a 
doctrine  easily  leads  into  a  practical  antiuoinianism 


216          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

of  the  wildest  sort.  Xoyes  had  seemed  to  be  tend 
ing  in  the  latter  direction.  In  particular  he  had 
been  led  by  the  many  obvious  miseries  of  the 
ordinary  conjugal  relation,  and  the  inconsistency 
of  ordinary  sexual  morality,  to  propound  a  new 
system  for  regulating  the  relations  of  the  sexes. 
The  adversaries  of  Garrison  naturally  took  advan 
tage  of  the  opportunity  offered  them  by  his  accept 
ing  some  of  JSToyes's  tenets  to  represent  him  as  ac 
cepting  all,  and  to  make  him  out  an  enemy  of  the 
very  foundations  of  society.  Garrison,  with  proper 
resentment,  denied  this  charge  and  expressed  his 
belief  in  the  institution  of  marriage,  which  Noyes, 
ranking  a  wife  as  a  species  of  property,  rejected  as 
he  did  all  kinds  of  private  ownership.  At  the  same 
time,  Garrison,  with  worldly  imprudence  and  im 
personal  generosity,  refused  to  join  the  chorus  of 
condemnation  chanted  in  many  keys  against  the 
doctrine  of  "  holiness,"  that  is,  the  possibility  and 
duty  of  u  entire  sanctification  in  this  present  life." 
The  language  of  his  justification  shows  how  close 
was  the  association  in  his  mind  between  the  rights 
of  the  negro,  as  he  regarded  them,  and  the  obliga 
tion  to  perfect  holiness : 

"  Holiness  is  incompatible  with  robbery,  oppres 
sion,  love  of  dominion,  murder,  pride,  vainglory, 
worldly  pomp,  selfishness,  and  sinful  lusts.  But 
these  ecclesiastical  bodies  are  determined  to  make 
a  Christian  life  compatible  with  a  military  pro 
fession,  with  killing  enemies,  with  enslaving  a 
portion  of  mankind,  with  the  robbing  of  the  poor, 
with  worldliness  and  ambition,  with  a  participation 


THE  INFIDEL  GAKB1SON  21 1 

in  all  popular  iniquities.  Hence,  when  abolition 
ism  declares  that  no  man  can  love  God  who  en 
slaves  another,  they  deny  it,  and  declare  that  man- 
stealing  and  Christianity  may  co-exist  in  the  same 
character.  When  it  is  asserted  that  the  forgiveness 
instead  of  the  slaughter  of  enemies  is  necessary  to 
constitute  one  a  Christian,  they  affirm  that  to  hang, 
stab,  or  shoot  enemies,  under  certain  circumstances, 
is  perfectly  consonant  with  the  spirit  of  Christ. 
Thus  they  make  no  distinction  between  the  precious 
and  the  vile,  sanctify  what  is  evil,  perpetuate 
crime,  and  honor  what  is  devilish.  They  are  cages 
of  unclean  birds,  Augean  stables  of  pollution,  which 
need  thorough  purification.  .  .  . 

"  As  men  who  are  conscious  of  guilt  should  not 
attempt  to  excuse  themselves,  so  should  they  not 
countenance  sin  in  others.  .  .  .  Instead,  there 
fore,  of  assailing  the  doctrine,  i  Be  ye  perfect,  even 
as  your  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect,'  let  us  all  aim 
to  establish  it,  not  merely  as  theoretically  right,  but 
as  practically  attainable  ;  and  if  we  are  conscious 
that  we  are  not  yet  wholly  clean,  not  yet  entirely 
reconciled  to  God,  not  yet  filled  with  perfect  love, 
let  us  ...  be  willing  to  be  delivered  from  tlu> 
power  of  darkness,  and  translated  into  the  kingdom 
of  God's  dear  Son."1 

Garrison's  standard  of  outward  conduct,  it  may 
well  be  said,  was  one  with  that  set  by  the  more 
severe  evangelical  sects.  Though  he*  disapproved 
Sabbatarian  restrictions  imposed  by  law,  he  ob 
served  Sunday  in  his  household  as  a  day  of  grave 

lLife,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  14,  15. 


218          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEK1SON 

though  not  gloomy  rest.  As  for  theatres,  the  fol 
lowing  dismal  paragraph  appeared  in  the  Liberator 
of  March  13,  1840,  the  same  year  in  which  the 
holding  of  the  Sabbath  convention  caused  him  to  be 
so  bitterly  denounced.  "  No  truly  good  man  can 
regard  the  present  condition  of  the  theatres  of 
Boston  but  with  intense  delight.  These  deep  and 
powerful  sources  of  evil,  which  have  for  many  years 
sown  and  nourished  corruption  in  its  most  dreadful 
form,  among  all  classes  of  the  community,  seem 
destined  speedily  to  become  extinct.  This  is  an 
omen  of  good  to  which  no  boundaries  can  be  affixed, 
and  which  the  enlarged  and  constantly  increasing 
attendance  at  the  meetings  of  our  institutions,  moral 
and  religious,  furnishes  almost  incontestable  evi 
dence  that  we  may  soon  realize.' ' 

The  doctrine  of  non-resistance,  taught  alike  by 
Garrison  and  by  Noyes,  was  still  more  fundamental 
in  Garrison's  creed  than  that  of  holiness.  Like  the 
rest  of  his  doctrines  it  was  lumped  for  condemnation 
with  all  kinds  of  infidelity.  For  instance,  the  Eev. 
Edward  Beecher,  president  of  Jacksonville  College, 
Illinois,  is  said  T  to  have  "  prognosticated  the  speedy 
end  of  the  world  by  l  the  general  wickedness  which 
prevailed,  the  doctrines  of  the  perfectionists,  non- 
resistants,  deists,  atheists,  and  pantheists,  which  are 
all  those  of  false  Christs.7  "  The  non-resistant,  ac 
cepting  literally  the  words,  and  obeying  literally 
the  conduct  of  Jesus,  with  perfect  confidence  in 
their  practicability  and  reasonableness,  taught, 
first  of  all,  the  duty  of  abstaining  from  violence  as 

1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  14. 


THE  INFIDEL  GARRISON  219 

a  private  obligation  between  man  and  man.  Hence 
all  attempts  to  punish  or  take  vengeance  011  a 
wrong-doer  by  physical  compulsion  or  restraint 
were  sinful.  As  between  nations,  likewise,  war  was 
forbidden ;  a  soldier  was  a  murderer.  The  doctrine 
was  obviously  incompatible  with  capital  punish 
ment.  Slavery,  resting  necessarily  on  compulsion, 
was  peculiarly  hateful,  the  sum  of  all  abominations, 
to  the  non- resistant.  It  was  nothing  but  perpetual 
private  war.  The  logic  of  non-resistance,  however, 
fairly  considered,  goes  much  further  still.  The 
existence  of  all  governments  depends  ultimately 
upon  their  power  to  exert  force.  Not  only  capital 
punishment,  but  all  the  penalties  of  law  are  con 
straints  put  upon  men  by  external  force.  The 
equality  of  the  law  consists  simply  in  the  fact  that 
the  organized  force  of  society  is  exerted  against  the 
disobedient.  Hence  non-resistance  was  regarded  as 
a  no-government  idea,— as  a  philosophical  anarch 
ism.  The  non-resistant  may  suffer  the  force  of 
government ;  he  will  never  employ  it.  He  cannot 
plead  in  a  court  to  recover  his  debts,  or  fill  any 
public  office,  or  perform  the  commonest  duties  of 
citizenship. 

When  the  destructive  nature  of  these  ideas  was 
insisted  upon,  Garrison  answered  by  saying,  in 
effect,  that  government  is  an  inevitable  consequence 
of  the  sins  and  faithlessness  of  mankind.  As  things 
are,  he  admitted,  a  society  without  a  government 
would  be  self- destructive,  and  must,  to  protect  it 
self,  reestablish  the  rule  of  ordered  force.  Yet 
the  fault,  he  contended,  lies  not  in  the  ideas  of 


220          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARKISON 

non-resistance,  but  in  the  sinfuluess  and  faithless 
ness  of  mankind.  The  confused  logic  of  this  argu 
ment  is  characteristic  of  Garrison's  treatment  of 
other  fundamental  questions.  The  doctrines  of 
non-resistance  will  not  bear  thus  to  be  reduced  to 
truisms.  Assuredly  if  no  man  did  wrong,  there 
would  be  no  need  of  punitive  law  ;  but  the  ques 
tion  is,  if  men  do  wrong,  what  must  be  done  ?  If 
it  is  wicked  to  exert  violence  upon  them,  every 
officer  of  the  law  is  a  sinner,  and  only  the  wicked 
can  be  called  upon  to  govern.  The  non-resistant's 
view  of  life  implies  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  seek 
for  the  good  of  his  own  soul  without  regard  to  what 
he  can  do  for  the  welfare  of  mankind,  that  he  has 
a  right  to  a  beatitude  bought  by  the  withdrawal 
from  life.  Such  views  might  justly  seem  dangerous 
to  all  who  believed  in  maintaining  society  in  which 
the  violently  wicked  must  be  controlled,  and  who 
looked  with  dread  on  the  possibility  of  weakening 
the  foundations  of  social  morality. 

The  elements  of  Garrison's  creed  have  been  pre 
sented  separately.  Thoy  had  their  principle  of 
unity  in  a  belief  in  the  all-importance  of  the  indi 
vidual.  Garrison's  function  was  not  even  primarily 
the  emancipation  of  the  slave — that  was  but  an 
incident  in  a  larger  work  ;  namely,  his  contribution 
to  the  emancipation  of  the  individual  soul  in 
America.  "The  years  between  1820  and  1830," 
says  Mr.  John  Jay  Chapman  in  his  essay  on  Em 
erson,  "were  the  most  pitiable  through  which 
this  country  has  ever  passed.  The  conscience  of 
the  North  was  pledged  to  the  Missouri  Compro- 


THE  INFIDEL  GARBISON  221 

inise,  and  that  Compromise  neither  slumbered  nor 
slept.  In  New  England,  where  the  old  theocratical 
oligarchy  of  the  colonies  had  survived  the  Rev- 
olution  and  kept  under  its  own  water-locks  the 
new  flood  of  trade,  the  conservatism  of  politics 
reinforced  the  conservatism  of  religion ;  and  as  if 
these  two  inquisitions  were  not  enough  to  stifle 
the  soul  of  man,  the  conservatism  of  business  self- 
interest  was  superimposed.  The  histoiy  of  the  con 
flicts  which  followed  has  been  written  by  the  rad 
icals,  who  negligently  charged  up  to  self- interest 
all  the  resistance  which  establishments  offer  to 
change.  But  it  was  not  solely  self-interest,  it  was 
conscience  that  backed  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise,  nowhere  else  so  strongly  as  in  New  England. 
.  .  .  It  was  the  spiritual  power  of  a  committed 
conscience  which  met  the  new  forces  as  they  arose, 
and  it  deserves  a  better  name  than  these  new 
forces  afterward  gave  it.  In  1830  the  social  fruits 
of  these  heavy  conditions  could  be  seen  in  the  life 
of  the  people.  Free  speech  was  lost.  ...  So 
long  as  there  is  any  subject  which  men  may  not  freely 
discuss,  they  are  timid  upon  all  subjects.  They 
wear  an  iron  crown  and  talk  in  whispers.  Such 
social  conditions  crush  and  maim  the  individual, 
and  throughout  New  England,  as  throughout  the 
whole  North,  the  individual  was  crushed  and 
maimed. "  l 

It  was  Garrison's  work  to  help  in  breaking  this 
oppression,  "heavy  as    frost,  and  deep  almost  as 
life."     When   he  had  spoken  out,  the   whole  air 
1  Emerson  and  Other  Essays,  pp.  6,  7,  9. 


222          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKBISON 

was  freer  and  the  heavens  were  lighter  above  the 
heads  of  men.  The  adjustment  of  the  freedom  of 
the  individual  and  the  control  of  society  is  one 
of  those  fascinatingly  infinite  problems  forever  ap 
proximated  and  never  accomplished.  Order  will 
be  preserved  because  it  must  be  ;  but  freedom  in 
each  generation  must  be  fought  for.  With  the 
advance  of  civilization,  the  increasing  complexity 
of  the  social  order  allows  a  greater  scope  of  free 
dom,  and  is  at  the  same  time  fertile  in  new  forces 
of  oppression,  more  remote  and  delicate  but  no 
less  real  than  those  of  past  ages.  In  each  gener 
ation  men  must  be  raised  up  to  struggle  lest  the 
past  should  saddle  and  weight  the  future ;  and  to 
Garrison  was  allotted  the  glory  of  being  a  voice, 
and  a  mighty  voice,  of  freedom  for  his  age.  Such 
men  as  he  make  it  possible  for  others  to  deal  with 
life  frankly  at  first  hand,  and  their  service  to  hu 
manity  is  not  to  be  estimated  by  considering  the 
logical  soundness  of  their  views. 

The  dogma  of  non-resistance,  with  all  its  corol 
laries,  is  but  one  expression  of  the  individualistic 
creed.  Obviously,  the  dignity  of  the  individual 
requires  freedom  from  external  compulsion.  The 
law  must  be  obeyed,  but  must  be  accepted  first 
from  within.  As  individuals,  women  have,  on 
principle,  the  same  rights  as  men ;  and  therefore 
the  Woman's  Rights  movement  is  but  one  phase 
of  an  individualistic  view  of  society.  The  social 
order  may  not  demand  from  the  individual  his 
sovereignty  over  his  own  moral  nature ;  and  hence 
resulted  Garrison's  no-government  ideas.  Espe- 


THE  INFIDEL  GARBISON  223 

cially  in  the  most  intimate  realm  of  the  inner  life, 
in  the  religious  life,  the  soul  must  come  freely  face 
to  face  with  its  Maker,  it  must  weave  its  own  gar 
ment,  must  be  incarnate  in  its  own  body  of  forms, 
taking  to  itself  that  which  is  natural  to  it.  From 
these  conceptions  follow  the  mystic  idea  of  the 
Church,  the  lightness  with  which  ties  of  denomi 
national  association  bound  Garrison,  his  disregard 
of  form,  his  insistence  on  spiritual  realities  as  the 
only  religious  facts  of  consequence.  The  moral 
life  was  lived  by  him  from  within  outward.  Garri 
son  was,  moreover,  a  man  of  action.  Ideas  inter 
ested  him  only  as  principles  by  which  men  were 
moved  to  deeds.  So  he  judged  institutions  by 
their  fruits  in  the  conduct  of  their  individual  mem 
bers.  The  Church  and  the  state  were  worthy  of 
reverence  only  so  far  as  they  contributed  to  j  ustice 
and  right  in  the  life  of  the  believer  and  the  citizen. 
Those  who  felt  that  truth  to  their  own  natures 
required  them  to  separate  from  corporate  activities, 
whether  of  Church  or  state,  were  called  by  a  special 
name, — "  Come- Outers  " — as  having  followed  the 
apostolic  precept :  "Be  not  unequally  yoked  with 
unbelievers.  .  .  .  Come  ye  out  from  among 
them,  and  be  ye  separate. "  l  Unable  to  conquer 
the  evil  of  a  corrupt  world,  they  at  least  did 
not  share  in  its  corruption.  No  matter  whose 
hands  were  soiled,  theirs  were  clean.  Such  was 
Garrison's  separation  from  his  country.  As  a 
protest,  this,  like  a  hunger-strike  or  hara-kiri,  was 
doubtless  impressive,  even  valuable  in  its  influence ; 
»2Cor.  6:14. 


224          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKLSON 

as  a  philosophy  of  life,  it  is  folly.  For  if  we  con- 
seiit  to  exist  at  all,  we  must  at  least  accept  the  past  ; 
and  how  can  we  withdraw  from  sharing  in  the 
common  life  except  by  withdrawing  from  life  alto 
gether  ? 

There  was  one  manifestation  of  the  individualistic 
spirit  with  which  Garrison  felt  no  sympathy,— 
"  No- organization."  Some  of  the  tender  con 
sciences  of  the  time  found  themselves  unable  to 
subscribe  to  the  conditions  of  any  cooperation  at  all. 
They  could  not  endure  the  tyranny  of  committees, 
presiding  officers,  and  parliamentary  procedure. 
One  may  at  least  congratulate  them  if  he  cannot 
approve  them.  Dr.  Johnson  somewhere  reckons 
up  a  formidable  and  impressive  list  of  the  things 
like  sickness  and  sleep  and  petty  business,  which 
shorten  life  by  wasting  time  and  impairing  strength. 
He  did  not  know  committee  meetings.  At  the 
Ohardon  Street  Convention,  some,  like  Brouson  Al- 
cott,  desired  the  meetings  to  be  conducted  without 
formal  organization  of  any  kind,  and  Emerson 
records  as  one  of  the  advantages  derived  from  the 
convention,  "the  attitude  taken  by  individuals  of 
their  number  of  resistance  to  the  insane  routine  of 
parliamentary  usage."  l  This  spirit  now  threatened 
the  organized  abolition  movement.  Some  of  the 
most  devoted  Abolitionists,  among  them  Garrison's 
attached  friend,  N.  P.  Rogers,  held  that  it  was 
obligatory  on  them  to  reject  all  propaganda  except 
moral  and  spiritual  forces,  and  that  they  must  not 
be  bound  by  any  systematic  organization  whatever. 
1  Emerson,  Works,  Centenary  edition,  Vol.  X,  p.  376. 


THE  INFIDEL  GAEEISON  225 

Alarmed  by  this  tendency,  Garrison  in  April,  1841, 
framed  resolutions  passed  by  the  Middlesex  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  to  the  effect  that  "if  'new  organ 
ization'  be  in  direct  opposition  to  the  genius  of  the 
anti-slavery  enterprise,  no-organization  (as  now 
advocated  in  certain  quarters)  would  be  still  more 
uuphilosophical  and  pernicious  in  its  tendencies." 

Still  others  among  the  reforming  spirits  of  that 
age  were  striving  to  create  a  new  economic  rank. 
To  this  end  some  strove  to  combine  freedom  with 
cooperation  by  establishing  communities.  Brook 
Farm  was  set  in  action  by  George  Eipley  in  1840- 
1841.  A  few  months  later  followed  the  community 
at  Hopedale,  under  the  moral  inspiration  of  the 
Eev.  Adin  Ballon.  In  1842,  the  community  at 
Northampton,  Mass.,  came  into  existence.  It 
had  no  denominational  connections.  This  North 
ampton  "  Association  of  Education  and  Industry" 
was  of  special  interest  to  Garrison,  for  it  was 
organized  by  men  whom  he  pronounced  to  be 
"among  the  freest  and  best  spirits  of  the  age." 
One  of  them  was  his  brother-in-law,  George  W. 
Benson.  Still,  kindly  as  he  regarded  this,  as  other 
movements  for  the  amelioration  of  the  lot  of  man 
kind,  he  was  not  sanguine,  speaking  of  the  organi 
zation  of  communities  in  a  slightly  satiric  tone  as  a 
"  new  species  of  colonization." 

In  truth,  Garrison  never  exhibited  the  least 
sympathy  with  efforts  to  reform  the  relations  of 
employer  and  employed  under  the  regime  of  un 
restricted  competition.  He  was  indeed  solicitous 
lest  such  movements  should  weaken  the  attack 


226          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

upon  slavery.  Thus,  when  in  England,  he  com 
bated  the  idea  that  a  single  workman  there,  how 
ever  oppressed,  was  a  slave.  He  was  cold  to  the 
communities.  He  took  no  interest  in  the  land  laws 
which,  as  Professor  Commons  has  made  clear,  were 
primarily  intended  to  relieve  the  labor  market  of 
the  East,  and  which  by  creating  the  free-soil  popu 
lation,  in  time  upset  the  old  balance  of  the  sections 
and  destroyed  slavery.  And  even  after  the  final 
victory  of  his  cause,  he  scorned  the  labor  move 
ments,  and  declared  that  if  working  men  would 
throw  off  the  worst  tyranny  under  which  they 
suffered,  the  slavery  of  their  own  appetites,  they 
need  not  fear  subjection  to  the  yoke  of  an  em 
ployer. 

After  the  secession  of  1839,  the  state  of  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society  was  such  that  its 
funds  would  not  support  lecturers  while  yet  to 
maintain  it  the  most  active  agitation  was  necessary. 
The  offense  taken  at  Garrison's  many  heresies  and 
the  charges  actively  disseminated  against  him  made 
him  the  more  responsible  for  the  support  of  the 
society,  and  he  therefore  became  very  active  in  the 
lecture  field.  From  among  the  irreconcilables,  a 
small  band  of  devoted  supporters  came  to  his  assist 
ance. 

The  conditions  of  the  time  made  it  natural  for 
the  fulminations  against  the  Church  and  clergy  to 
be  especially  severe.  During  the  year  1841-1842 
the  record  of  the  national  denominations  was,  from 
an  abolitionist  point  of  view,  particularly  black, 
and  abolitionist  resolutions  and  speeches  were  of  ex- 


THE  INFIDEL  GAKRISON  227 

cessive  violence.  Garrison's  denunciations,  though 
harsh,  were  not  in  bad  taste.  He  declared,  for  ex 
ample,  in  the  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Conven 
tion  of  May,  1841,  that  "in  regard  to  the  existence 
of  slavery,  ...  the  clergy  stand  wickedly 
preeminent,  and  ought  to  be  unsparingly  exposed 
and  reproved  before  the  people"  ;  but  others 
wished  to  assert  by  resolution,  "  That  the  Church 
and  clergy  of  the  United  States,  as  a  whole,  con 
stitute  a  great  BROTHERHOOD  OF  THIEVES,  inas 
much  as  they  countenance  the  highest  kind  of  theft, 
i.  e.,  man-stealing."  Among  those  prominent  in 
the  debate  on  these  resolutions  were  naturally 
Garrison's  associates  on  the  platform.  The  stand 
they  took  on  this  occasion  was  characteristic  of  all 
their  utterances.  Only  one,  C.  C.  Burleigh,  was  in 
favor  of  the  more  restrained  form  proposed  by 
Garrison.  Parker  Pillsbury,  N.  P.  Rogers,  and 
Stephen  S.  Foster  urged  the  convention  to  accept 
the  more  violent  words  of  the  second  resolution, 
which  had  been  offered  by  H.  C.  Wright.  Abby 
Kelley,  who  was  another  active  lecturer  at  this 
time,  presented  to  the  tenth  anniversary  meeting 
of  the  Massachusetts  Anti- Slavery  Society  resolu 
tions,  "That  the  sectarian  organizations  called 
churches  are  combinations  of  thieves,  robbers, 
adulterers,  pirates,  and  murderers,  and  as  such 
form  the  bulwark  of  American  slavery." 

Pillsbury,  Foster,  Miss  Kelley,  and  Burleigh 
constituted  with  Garrison  the  color-guard  of  the 
auti -slavery  lecturers  of  this  year.  They  were  all 
persons  of  marked  and  picturesque  character. 


228          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAER1SON 

Parker  Pillsbury  was  the  ninth  of  thirteen  children 
in  the  family  of  a  poor  New  Hampshire  farmer. 
By  sacrih'cial  effort  he  succeeded  in  obtaining  a 
theological  education,  and  was  in  attendance  at  the 
Andover  Seminary  when  he  took  up  the  aboli 
tionist  cause.  Being  warned  by  the  faculty  that  if 
he  persisted  in  addressing  abolitionist  meetings  he- 
need  not  expect  to  be  recommended  to  a  parish,  he 
unhesitatingly  threw  in  his  lot  with  the  reformers, 
and  sacrificed  his  worldly  future. 1  He  was  a  man  of 
direct  and  vigorous  speech,  and  his  portrait  repre 
sents  him  as  intent  and  earnest,  but  in  no  wise  hard 
or  obstinate.  In  all  the  gallery  of  the  anti-slavery 
apostles,  there  is  no  more  manly  or  attractive 
countenance  than  his. 

Stephen  S.  Foster,2  like  Pillsbury,  had  made  his 
way  up  from  humble  circumstances.  Though  born 
in  1809,  he  did  not  graduate  from  college  until 
1838,  when  he  received  his  degree  from  Dartmouth. 
He  then  went  to  the  Union  Theological  Seminary, 
but  abandoned  his  preparation  for  the  ministry  to 
take  up  the  lot  of  the  reformer  in  1840.  Not  more 
resolute  than  Pillsbury,  he  was  much  more  sen 
sational  and  irritating  to  his  adversaries.  He 
made  a  practice  of  interrupting  religious  meetings 
to  give  his  testimony  for  freedom,  and  being  a 
steadfast  non-resistant,  bore  with  irritating  meek 
ness  the  assaults  from  minister,  elder,  or  deacon  to 
which  he  was  in  consequence  subjected.  He  was 

1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  181  n. ;  Pillsbnry,  Acts  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
Apostles,  p.  85. 

9  Acts  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Apostles,  pp.  123-147,  186. 


THE  INFIDEL  GARRISON  229 

several  times  in  jail,  and  had  more  power  than  any 
other  anti-slavery  lecturer  to  bring  on  a  shower  of 
rotten  eggs  and  brickbats.  His  method  of  stirring 
up  his  audience  is  made  very  clear  by  his  favorite 
assertion,  that  the  Methodist  Church  was  worse 
than  any  brothel  in  New  York.  A  scraggy  beard 
grew  about  his  eager,  intellectual  face,  and  gave 
it  a  look  of  wildness.  His  wide,  thin  lips  were 
compressed  and  shut  together  in  a  straight  line. 
Across  his  chin  there  was  a  wrinkle,  as  if  he  held 
his  face  habitually  in  a  scornful  and  truculent 
expression,  and  he  looked  as  if  he  were  always 
ready  to  jump  at  an  enemy.  Yet  withal  his  was  a 
fine  and  truthful  soul. 

Miss  Abby  Kelley,  who  afterward  married  Foster, 
followed  the  same  plan  of  causing  "the  truth  to 
make  a  sensation  by  making  it  sensational," — to  use 
Gail  Hamilton's  phrase.  Her  face,  with  its  beauti 
ful  wide  brow  and  sensitive  lips,  had  much  intellec 
tual  dignity  and  nobility,  and  no  little  sweetness, 
but  her  eyes  shone  with  the  undue  brightness,  and 
her  face  was  worn  with  the  undue  intensity,  which 
bore  witness  to  the  sacrifice  of  poise  and  self-control 
in  most  of  this  interesting  company.  In  the  later 
and  increasingly  bitter  years  of  Abolitionism  a 
spirit  of  acerbity  grew  upon  her. 

Both  Pillsbury  and  Foster  were  bearded,  in  oppo 
sition  to  the  fashion  of  the  day,  but  their  hair  and 
beards,  though  not  conventionally  elegant,  were  as 
nothing  compared  with  the  flowing,  sandy  beard  and 
uutrimnied  chevelure  of  C.  C.  Burleigh.  His  nose, 
slightly  curved  downward  at  the  end,  and  his  long, 


230          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKRISON 

curling  hair  and  beard  gave  him  a  Jewish  look. 
As  his  expression  was  singularly  mild,  the  jibe  of 
the  Eynders  mob,  "Shave  that  tall  Christ,  and 
make  a  wig  for  Garrison,"  had  its  small  share  of 
vulgar  wit.  Buiieigh  was  unquestionably  the 
ablest  debater  among  the  Abolitionists,  being  fluent, 
intense,  logical,  and  clear  j  but  he  was  not  their 
most  impressive  orator,  because  he  lacked  conden 
sation  and  the  massive  weight  of  Garrison,  as  well 
as  the  imagination  and  other  gifts  of  Phillips. 

Burleigh  had  long  been  active  in  the  anti-slavery 
cause.  The  other  three  had  more  lately  joined  the 
ranks.  In  his  "Letter  from  Boston"  about  the 
Anti- Slavery  Fair  in  1846,  Lowell  describes  them  in 
witty  and  telling  verse,  which  in  spite  of  its  length, 
is  here,  as  by  the  Garrisons,  given  without  apology, 
to  revive  a  vivid  epitome  of  men  and  days  fast  pass 
ing  from  the  American  memory.1  The  letter  is  ad 
dressed  to  James  Miller  McKim,  the  editor  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Freeman  : 

"Beyond,  a  crater  in  each  eye, 
Sways  brown,  broad-shouldered  Pillsbury, 
Who  tears  up  words  like  trees  by  the  roots, 
A  Theseus  in  stout  cowhide  boots, 
The  wager  of  eternal  war 
Against  that  loathsome  Minotaur 
To  whom  we  sacrifice  each  year 
The  best  blood  of  our  Athens  here, 
(Dear  M.,  pray  brush  up  your  Lempriere.) 
A  terrible  denouncer  he, 

1  The  text,  however,  follows  Lowell's  revision  in  the  1891 
edition  of  his  poems. 


THE  INFIDEL  GAKEISON  231 

Old  Sinai  bums  unquenchably 

Upon  his  lips  ;  he  might  well  be  a 

Hot-blazing  soul  from  fierce  Judea, 

Habakkuk,  Ezra,  or  Hosea. 

His  words  are  red  hot  iron  searers, 

And  nightmare-like  he  mounts  hie  hearers, 

Spurring  them  like  avenging  Fate,  or 

As  Waterton l  his  alligator. 

"  Hard  by,  as  calm  as  summer  even, 
Smiles  the  reviled  and  pelted  Stephen, 
The  unappeasable  Boanerges 
To  all  the  Churches  and  the  Clergies, 
The  grim  savant  who,  to  complete 
His  own  peculiar  cabinet, 
Contrived  to  label  'mong  his  kicks 
One  from  the  followers  of  Hicks ; 2 
Who  studied  mineralogy 
Not  with  soft  book  upon  the  knee, 
But  learned  the  properties  of  stones 
By  contact  sharp  of  flesh  and  bones, 
And  made  the  experiment  urn  crucis 
With  his  own  body's  vital  juices ; 
A  man  with  caoutchouc  endurance, 
A  perfect  gem  for  life  insurance, 
A  kind  of  maddened  John  the  Baptist, 
To  whom  the  harshest  word  comes  aptest, 
Who,  struck  by  stone  or  brick  ill-starred, 
Hurls  back  an  epithet  as  hard, 
Which,  deadlier  than  stone  or  brick, 
Has  a  propensity  to  stick. 
His  oratory  is  like  the  scream 
Of  the  iron  horse's  frenzied  steam 

1  Charles  Waterton,  the  naturalist,  who  tells  of  bestriding  a 
gavial  when  he  and  his  men  captured  it. 

5  The  Hicksite  Quakers,  usually  strong  Abolitionists,  and 
Non-Resistants ;  even  from  them  Foster  collected  rebuffs. 


232          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

Which  warns  the  world  to  leave  wide  space 
For  the  black  engine's  swerveless  race. 
Ye  men  with  neckcloths  white,  I  warn  you — 
Habet  a  whole  haymow  in  cornu. 

"A  Judith,  there,  turned  Quakeress, 

Sits  Abby  in  her  modest  dress, 

Serving  a  table  quietly, 

As  if  that  mild  and  downcast  eye 

Flashed  never,  with  its  scorn  intense, 

More  than  Medea's  eloquence. 

So  the  same  force  which  shakes  its  dread 

Far-blazing  locks  o'er  ^Etna's  head, 

Along  the  wires  in  silence  fares 

And  messages  of  commerce  bears. 
'  No  nobler  gift  of  heart  and  brain, 

No  life  more  white  from  spot  or  stain, 

Was  e'er  on  Freedom's  altar  laid 

Than  hers,  the  simple  Quaker  maid. 

"These  last  three  (leaving  in  the  lurch 
Some  other  themes)  assault  the  Church, 
Who  therefore  writes  them  in  her  lists 
As  Satan's  limbs  and  atheists  ; 
For  each  sect  has  one  argument 
Whereby  the  rest  to  hell  are  sent. 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

If  the  poor  Church,  by  power  enticed, 
Finds  none  so  infidel  as  Christ, 

****** 
What  wonder  World  and  Church  should  call 
The  true  faith  atheistical?  " 

But  the  most  remarkable  incident  of  Garrison's 
tours  during  the  year  1841  was  the  addition  of  .Fred 
erick  Douglass  to  the  number  of  abolition  lecturers. 
Douglass,  a  quadroon  of  ability  and  force  of  char- 


THE  INFIDEL  GAKBISON  233 

acter,  Lad  made  his  escape  from  slavery  three  years 
before,  and  was  living  in  New  Bedford.  Learning 
that  Garrison  was  to  speak  in  Nantucket,  he  at 
tended  the  meeting,  and  was  invited  by  a  gentle 
man  who  had  heard  him  address  a  company  of  col 
ored  people  to  support  the  affirmations  of  the  re 
formers  by  his  testimony.  He  describes  himself  as 
stammering,  trembling,  and  halting  in  speech,  as  he 
told  the  story  of  his  own  life  and  adventures.  The 
testimony  of  others  is  to  the  effect  that  he  spoke 
with  power  and  eloquence.  The  audience,  previ 
ously  calm,  were  thrilled  through  and  through  with 
this  living  proof  of  the  nature  of  slavery.  Garrison 
rose  to  speak,  very  quiet,  very  serene,  his  whole 
being  possessed  with  the  transcendent  importance 
of  his  mission.  The  contrast  between  the  young 
colored  man,  with  his  great  bush  of  hair  and  his 
tawny,  leonine  beauty,  and  Garrison,  spare  of  flesh, 
the  light  shining  on  the  ivory  of  his  now  bald  head, 
his  brown  eyes  enkindled,  and  his  face  expressing 
at  once  his  calm  benevolence  and  the  deep  surge  of 
feeling  stirring  him  like  a  quiet  but  overpowering 
tide,  makes  this  scene  dramatic.  When  Garrison 
said:  "Have  we  been  listening  to  a  man  or  a 
thing !  "  the  effect  was  like  that  of  an  electric  shock. 
It  is  not  strange  that  as  Garrison,  with  the  full  power 
of  his  voice  but  without  the  loss  of  that  dignity  al 
ways  attending  the  fixed  poise  of  his  nature,  shouted, 
"  Shall  such  a  man  be  sent  back  to  slavery  from 
the  soil  of  old  Massachusetts  ?  "  u  almost  the  whole 
assembly,"  in  the  words  of  Parker  Pillsbury,  an 
eye-witness  of  the  incident,  "  sprang  with  one  ac- 


234         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEEISOK 

cord  to  their  feet,  arid  the  walls  and  roof  of  the 
Atheuseuin  seemed  to  shudder  with  the  t  No,  no ! ' 
loud  and  long- continued  in  the  wild  enthusiasm  of 
the  scene."  l 

Mr.  Garrison's  sons  tell  us  that  their  father  did 
not  remember  his  past  vividly  ;  but  in  the  recollec 
tion  of  one  journey  taken  late  in  the  summer  of  1841 
he  found  an  ever-present  source  of  joy.  This  was  an 
excursion,  mainly  for  pleasure,  into  the  White 
Mountains,  in  the  company  of  N.  P.  Kogers. 
Eogers  was  a  man  of  lively  temperament,  widely 
read  and  pleasantly  humorous.  Garrison  and  he 
had  been  much  together  in  Europe,  and  had 
come  to  feel  a  sincere  affection  for  each  other. 
Eogers  had  been  the  editor  of  the  Standard,  the 
organ  of  the  national  society,  and  had  just  been  ap 
pointed  to  the  editorship  of  the  Herald  of  Free 
dom,  the  organ  of  the  New  Hampshire  society. 
In  August,  when  relieved  of  his  duties  as  editor  of 
the  Standard,  he  offered  to  fulfil  a  promise  made 
while  the  two  were  gazing  at  one  of  the  most 
famous  scenes  in  Scotland  :  that  he  would  show 
Garrison  scenery  in  New  Hampshire  of  a  more  mass 
ive  and  sublime  character  than  anything  before 
them.  The  two  accordingly  went  on  an  excursion 
into  the  White  Mountains. 

A  railroad  ran  from  Boston  to  Nashua,  N.  H., 
forty  miles  ;  the  travelers  drove  the  rest  of  the  way. 
"  Blessings  on  the  head  that  projected,  on  the 
hands  that  executed,  the  railroad  mode  of  convey 
ance  !"  ejaculates  Garrison.  "It  is  superior  to 
1  Acts  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Apostles,  p,  328. 


THE  INFIDEL  GAEEISON  235 

eulogy.  .  .  .  Time  and  space  seem  almost  an 
nihilated."  l  They  had  traveled  these  forty  miles 
in  two  hours !  Their  drive  took  them  along  the 
whole  course  of  the  Merrimac  Eiver,  near  the  mouth 
of  which,  at  Newburyport,  was  the  birthplace  of  Gar 
rison,  and  near  the  head,  at  Plymouth,  N.  H.,  that 
of  Eogers.  They  ascended  the  Merrimac  valley  to 
Plymouth,  thence  crossed  to  Littleton,  climbed 
Mount  Washington  from  the  west,  and  came  home 
by  way  of  the  Crawford  Notch.  The  j  ourney  through 
the  mountains  occupied  a  week,  from  August  23d 
to  August  30th.  Along  the  way  abolition  meetings 
were  held,  in  most  cases  against  the  opposition  of 
the  clergy,  and  sometimes,  because  of  ministerial  un 
friendliness,  in  the  open  air.  The  journey  was  one 
of  innocent  hilarity,  enlivened  by  much  singing. 
Garrison's  ear  was  true,  and  he  was  fond  of  mel 
ody  ;  and  one  song  taught  him  by  Eogers, — "In 
the  days  when  we  went  gypsying," — became  more 
than  a  favorite  with  him.  Often  when  Mrs.  Gar 
rison  became  depressed  and  anxious  about  paying 
the  monthly  bills,  her  husband  used  to  put  his  arm 
about  her,  and  walk  up  and  down  the  room  singing 
this  song,  until  the  cloud  lifted. 

In  the  lively  account  of  the  journey,  printed  by 
Eogers  in  the  paper  that  he  now  went  to  edit,  ap 
pears  the  following  graceful  narrative  of  an  inci 
dent  which  presents  the  abolitionist  character  with 
quaint  vividness,  and  which  may  serve  to  explain, 
if  explanation  be  needed,  why  the  numbers  of  the 
Abolitionists  increased  no  more  rapidly.  u  As  we 

1  Liberator,  Vol.  XI,  p.  147. 


236          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

rode  through  the  [Franconia]  Notch  after  friends 
[Thomas  Parnell]  Beach  and  [Ezekiel]  Rogers,  we 
were  alarmed  at  seeing  smoke  issue  from  their 
chaise-top,  and  cried  out  to  them  that  their  chaise 
was  afire  !  We  were  more  than  suspicious,  how 
ever,  that  it  was  something  worse  than  that,  and 
that  the  smoke  came  out  of  friend  Rogers' s  mouth. 
And  it  so  turned  out.  This  was  before  we  reached 
the  Notch  tavern.  Alighting  there  to  water  our 
beasts,  we  gave  him,  all  round,  a  faithful  admoni 
tion.  For  anti-slavery  does  not  fail  to  spend  its  in 
tervals  of  public  service  in  mutual  and  searching 
corrections  of  the  faults  of  its  friends.  We  gave  it 
soundly  to  friend  Rogers — that  he,  an  abolitionist, 
on  his  way  to  an  anti-slavery  convention,  should 
desecrate  his  anti-slavery  mouth  and  that  glorious 
Mountain  Notch  with  a  stupefying  tobacco  weed. 
We  had  halted  at  the  Iron  Works  tavern  to  refresh 
our  horses,  and,  while  they  were  eating,  walked  to 
view  the  Furnace.  As  we  crossed  the  little  bridge, 
friend  Rogers  took  out  another  cigar,  as  if  to  light 
it  when  we  should  reach  the  fire.  'Is  it  any 
malady  you  have  got,  Brother  Rogers,'  said  we  to 
him,  'that  you  smoke  that  thing,  or  is  it  habit  and 
indulgence  merely  I '  i  It  is  nothing  but  habit,'  said 
he  gravely,  'or,  I  would  say,  it  was  nothing  else,' 
and  he  significantly  cast  the  little  roll  over  the  rail 
ing  into  the  Ammonoosuck.  l  A  revolution  ! '  ex 
claimed  Garrison,  'a  glorious  revolution  without 
noise  or  smokef  and  he  swung  his  hat  cheerily 
about  his  head."  ' 

1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  22. 


THE  INFIDEL  GABKISON  237 

When  Garrison  returned  to  his  desk,  he  found 
the  recurring  anxiety  as  to  the  finances  of  the  Lib 
erator  waiting  for  him.  The  receipts  for  the  year 
were  five  hundred  dollars  less  than  the  expenses, 
many  subscribers  having  stopped  the  paper  because 
of  Garrison's  part  in  the  Sabbath  Convention.  In 
addition,  there  caine  a  painful  difference  with  Isaac 
Kuapp.  A  virulent  attack  was  made  through  him 
upon  Garrison.  Kuapp' s  unsystematic  business 
habits  and  his  dissipation  had,  it  will  be  remem 
bered,  obliged  a  separation  in  1839  ;  and  after  that 
Kuapp,  instead  of  retrieving  himself,  had  gone  a 
downward  road,  spending  his  time  in  idleness, 
drink,  and  gambling.  Garrison  collected  between 
thirty  and  forty  dollars  for  Knapp  from  friends  at 
a  distance  who  were  willing  to  trust  the  poor  fel 
low's  promises ;  but  the  assistance  was  thrown 
away.  The  arrangement  made  in  1839  was  to  last 
until  January  1,  1842.  In  the  meantime  Knapp 
failed  in  business,  and  his  share  in  the  Liberator, 
which  was  part  of  his  assets,  had  been  bought  from 
the  creditors  by  E.  G.  Loriug.  Late  in  1841,  Kuapp 
endeavored  to  regain  his  share  in  the  publication 
of  the  paper,  but  was  naturally  unable  to  do  so. 
On  December  6th,  he  issued  a  circular  giving  his 
version  of  the  affair,  and  declaring  that  he  had  been 
deprived  by  " treachery  and  duplicity"  of  his  in 
terest  in  the  paper.  He  told  how  he  had  been  de 
nied  employment  on  the  Liberator  when  in  actual 
want.  To  prove  "that  however  many  inferior 
causes  have  been  at  work,  the  great  and  over 
shadowing  reason  why  there  has  been  so  much  di- 


238          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

vision  and  mutual  alienation  in  the  anti-slavery 
ranks,  has  been  the  selfish  and  deceptive  conduct 
of  Mr.  Garrison  and  others  at  his  elbows,"  Knapp 
designed  to  start  "  the  true  Liberator,"  to  be  called 
Knapp' s  Liberator,  which  should  be  printed  as  often 
as  "  there  may  be  a  call  for  it." 

The  associates  and  supporters  of  Knapp  were 
persons  very  close  to  the  centre  of  anti-slavery  ag 
itation  ; — John  Cutts  Smith,  formerly  John  Smith 
Cutts,  one  of  the  original  members  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and  Hamlet t  Bates 
and  Joel  Prentiss  Bishop,  clerks  in  the  anti-slavery 
society  office,  the  latter  of  whom,  after  attacking 
Collins' s  office  accounts,  had  associated  himself 
with  the  "New  Organization."  Bishop  is  well 
known  as  the  author  of  several  important  legal 
treatises,  and  his  seems  to  have  been  the  ablest 
and  the  directing  mind.  The  one  number  of 
Knapp'' s  Liberator,  bearing  date  of  January  8,  1842, 
contained  Bishop's  charges,  Knapp' s  circular  with 
corroborations,  and  anonymous  attacks  on  Garrison 
and  the  board.  The  document  was  widely  dissem 
inated  in  England,  and  was  thought  by  Garrison  to 
be  so  artfully  drawn  as  to  be  dangerous. 

The  Liberator  made  no  direct  reference  either  to 
the  circular  or  to  Knapp' s  Liberator,  but  the  facts  of 
the  transfer  of  Knapp' s  share  in  the  paper  were 
succinctly  stated  by  the  financial  committee. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  DISUNION  SENTIMENT 

WHEN  Garrison  had  just  suffered  the  violence  of 
the  Boston  mob,  and  when  the  protection  of  the 
state  had  been  denied  to  free  speech  on  the  subject 
of  slavery,  he  could  still  say,  "We  are  not  hostile 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  Six 
years  later,  in  1841,  he  denounced  the  Constitution 
and  called  on  the  North  to  withdraw  from,  the 
Union.  He  was  still  not  quite  ready  to  offer 
disunion  as  a  program ;  yet  such  a  program 
was  necessary  to  meet  the  Liberty  party  with  its 
definite  platform  and  its  distinct  war-cry,  and  in 
February,  1842,  he  announced  it.  Toward  the  end 
of  April,  he  at  last  declared  in  the  Liberator  that 
the  time  had  come  to  assert  "the  duty  of  making 
the  REPEAL  OF  THE  UNION  between  the  North  and 
the  South  the  grand  rallying-point  until  it  be 
accomplished,  or  slavery  cease  to  pollute  our  soil. 
We  are  for  throwing  all  the  means,  energies, 
actioDs,  purposes,  and  appliances  of  the  genuine 
friends  of  liberty  and  republicanism  into  this  one 
channel,  and  of  measuring  the  humanity,  patriot 
ism,  and  piety  of  every  man  by  this  one  standard. " 

The  utterance  of  these  views  caused  the  pro- 
Southern  papers  of  New  York  to  threaten  and  in  a 
more  or  less  open  manner  to  incite  the  mobbing 
of  the  Anti-Slavery  Convention  which  was  to  be 


240         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

held  in  that  city.  Moreover,  it  brought  forth  from 
the  executive  committee  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  a  disavowal,  in  the  form  of  a 
circular  to  the  press  of  New  York,  which  not  only 
declared  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  to  be  an 
object  "  entirely  foreign  to  the  purpose  for  which 
the  society  was  organized,"  but  condemned  the 
attempt  to  bring  it  about  on  moral  grounds. 
Deeply  moved  by  this  opposition  from  within, 
Garrison  replied  with  the  fearful  words  of  Isaiah, 
which  he  afterward  used  as  a  motto  in  the  Liberator. 
Speaking  for  himself  alone,  he  said  :  "  The  message 
of  the  prophet  to  the  people  in  Jerusalem  [Isaiah  28  : 
14-18]  describes  the  exact  character  of  our  '  repub 
lican  ?  compact.  .  .  .  Slavery  is  a  combination 
of  DEATH  and  HELL,  and  with  it  the  North  have 
made  a  covenant  and  are  at  agreement.  As  an 
element  of  the  government  it  is  omnipotent,  omnis 
cient,  omnipresent.  As  a  component  part  of  the 
Union,  it  is  necessarily  a  national  interest.  Di 
vorced  from  Northern  protection,  it  dies  ;  with  that 
protection,  it  enlarges  its  boundaries,  multiplies  its 
victims,  and  extends  its  ravages."  l 

The  anniversary  meetings  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  were  not  representative  assem 
blages,  but  conventions  of  as  many  Abolitionists 
from  all  parts  of  the  country  as  could  and  would 

1  It  seems  to  have  been  a  treasured  belief  with  Garrison  that 
the  use  of  italics  and  capital  letters  for  emphasis  helped  to 
kindle  a  fervor  in  the  reader's  mind.  This  usage  has  served  to 
make  the  appearance  of  some  of  his  printed  matter  unsightly 
to  modern  eyes,  however  effective  it  may  have  been  with  con 
temporary  minds. 


DISUNION  SENTIMENT  241 

spare  time  and  money  to  travel  to  the  appointed 
place.  Obviously,  there  would  tend  to  gather  at 
the  meetings  a  large  proportion  of  the  most  en 
thusiastic  part  of  the  membership,  expansive, 
radiant,  and  eager.  The  exciting  speeches,  the 
sense  of  power  and  importance  due  to  concentrated 
numbers,  accentuated  the  radical  tendencies  of  the 
members  present,  and  hence  the  root-and-branch 
policies  of  Garrison  had  always  a  certain  advantage 
before  this  body.  Though  the  formal  approval  of  a 
course  of  action  by  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society  had  no  authoritative  relation  to  the  Aboli 
tionists  as  a  whole,  it  was  of  decided  value.  A 
policy  thus  endorsed  stood  before  non- Abolitionists 
as  the  general  sentiment  of  the  Abolitionist  body, 
when  in  point  of  fact  the  stay-at-home  Abolition 
ists,  necessarily  the  greater  number,  might  be  far 
indeed  from  accepting  the  declarations  made  at 
New  York.  It  will  be  remembered  that  at  the 
meeting  in  1839  the  society  had  been  purged  of  the 
less  idealistic  and  radical  part  of  its  membership, 
and  afterward  consisted  almost  entirely  of  inexo 
rable  "foes  to  compromise. " 

It  was  before  this  purified  assembly,  the  "Old 
Organization,"  that  Garrison's  declaration  was  to  be 
brought.  To  avoid  even  the  semblance  of  exercis 
ing  a  dictatorial  influence,  Garrison  decided  not  to 
be  present,  although  he  l  i  regretted  to  be  absent  on 
account  of  the  stormy  aspect  of  things,  created  by 
the  diabolism  of  the  New  York  daily  press. " 

During  the  convention,  the  debate  proved  that 
the  majority  of  the  members,  led  by  Henry  C. 


242          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

Wright,  Edmund  Quincy,  Abby  Kelley,  and 
Wendell  Phillips,  the  ablest  and  most  consistent 
of  the  radical  wing  of  the  radical  Abolitionists, 
were  in  favor  of  Garrison's  propositions  ;  but  it 
was  thought  best  to  let  the  meeting  pass  without 
pressing  for  a  direct  vote.  The  same  policy  was 
followed  throughout  the  year,  the  minds  of  Aboli 
tionists  being  familiarized  with  the  disunion  idea 
by  the  introduction  at  local  meetings  of  resolutions 
in  favor  of  separation,  usually  discussed  and  laid 
on  the  table.  Garrison  himself,  on  May  12,  1842, 
put  his  doctrine  at  the  head  of  his  editorial 
columns,  where  he  kept  it  for  the  rest  of  the  year  : 

1 '  A  REPEAL  OF  THE  UNION  BETWEEN  NORTHERN 
LIBERTY  AND  SOUTHERN  SLAVERY  is  ESSENTIAL 
TO  THE  ABOLITION  OF  THE  ONE  AND  THE  PRESER 
VATION  OF  THE  OTHER." 

Sooner  or  later  the  mere  ripening  of  Garrison's 
own  logic  must  have  brought  his  mind  to  the  views 
which  he  adopted  somewhat  earlier  on  account  of 
the  denial  of  the  right  to  petition,  the  refusal  of  the 
right  to  free  speech,  and  the  violence  done  to  the 
comity  of  the  states  by  the  South.  He  saw  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  an  agreement  to 
protect  slavery.  That  the  agreement  was  made  at 
a  time  when  its  importance  was  not  foreseen,  and 
when  the  hope  was  confidently  and  not  unreasonably 
held,  both  in  the  North  and  in  the  South,  that 
slavery  would  disappear  of  itself,  were  in  his  mind 
no  palliations  for  the  bargain.  The  existence  of  the 
Constitution  depended  upon  an  agreement  guaran 
teeing  the  rights  of  the  slaveholder.  This,  in  hie 


DISUNION  SENTIMENT  243 

view,  was  an  immoral  contract,  and  the  whole 
compact  was  void  on  account  of  it.  Between  Garri 
son's  and  Calhoun's  reasoning  there  was  no  point 
of  difference  except  the  radical  opposition  on  the 
fundamental  matter  of  the  righteousness  of  slavery. 
To  Garrison  slavery  was  wicked,  the  Constitution 
was  formed  and  founded  on  the  support  of  wicked 
ness,  and  therefore  was  ab  initio  of  no  force  and 
effect.  There  was  no  place  in  his  mind  for  vague 
feelings  of  affection  for  national  unity.  To  him  as 
to  all  radical  reformers  every  moral  idea  was  the 
result  of  a  plain  process  of  inference  from  immutable 
general  principles,  and  was  applicable,  without 
shades  or  modifications  or  exceptions,  in  all  fields 
of  moral  activity.  From  such  a  point  of  view  there 
is  no  answer  to  his  conclusions.  If  a  nation  can  be 
formed  by  bond  and  agreement,  Garrison  was  right ; 
and  the  only  sound  answer  to  his  arguments  is  to 
be  found  in  recognizing  that  the  United  States  is  a 
nation  like  other  nations,  the  existence  of  which  is 
due  to  deeper  forces  than  paper  agreements  and 
contracts  between  states. 

To  Garrison  the  year  1842  must  have  been  one 
of  precious  memories.  Then  first  he  reached  intel 
lectual  consistency,  and  delivered  to  the  world  his 
final  message  of  importance.  He  had  purged  his 
soul  of  complicity  with  guilt,  and  was  blest  with 
an  inward  security  and  peace  even  greater  than  he 
had  felt  in  previous  years.  In  his  outer  life,  the 
year  was  full  of  action  and  still  more  of  bereave 
ment  and  suifering.  In  January  his  wife's  sister, 
Mary  Benson,  had  died  under  his  roof,  and  he  had 


244          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKK1SON 

spoken  at  her  funeral  such  words  of  moral  inspira 
tion  as  seemed  to  him  appropriate.  In  October  his 
only  brother,  James  H.  Garrison,  a  victim  of  in 
temperance  and  of  the  savage  ferocity  with  which 
seamen  were  then  treated,  both  in  the  merchant 
marine  and  the  navy,  had  come  to  the  end  of  his 
wretched  life,  likewise  in  Garrison's  house,  whither 
he  had  crept  as  to  a  last  refuge.  In  the  remorse 
following  a  debauch,  in  1841,  he  laid  plans  to  take 
his  own  life.  Prevented  from  executing  his  pur 
pose,  he  found  an  asylum  during  the  brief  remainder 
of  his  days  at  his  brother's  house.  When  his  body 
was  committed  to  the  ground,  his  brother  arranged 
that  the  funeral  should  be  as  "plain,  simple,  and 
free  as  possible,"  and  that  "liberty  of  speech " 
should  be  granted  to  all  who  should  attend.  Gar 
rison  himself  frankly  drew  from  James's  life  the 
Jessons  against  war  and  intemperance  which  his  un 
happy  brother's  career  had  helped  to  teach  him. 
The  Garrisons  have  told  this  narrative  of  a  wrecked 
life  with  naked  sincerity,  but  have  not  neglected  an 
opportunity  to  portray  the  evils  of  our  old  naval 
system.  Theirs  is  the  unfaltering  patriotism  which 
smites  to  heal  and  spares  not. 

Besides  performing  his  manifold  duties  on  the 
Liberator  and  discharging  his  obligations  as  kins 
man,  Garrison  was  busy  lecturing  all  summer,  going 
in  July  to  Cape  Cod,  and  afterward  to  Maine  and 
New  Hampshire.  In  November  he  for  the  first 
time  visited  "the  West/'— that  is,  central  and 
western  New  York.  The  journey  was  undertaken  to 
meet  the  inroads  of  the  "New  Organization"  and 


DISUNION  SENTIMENT  245 

the  Liberty  party  on  the  "  Old  Organization."  The 
members  of  the  Liberty  party  had  promptly  striven 
to  rid  themselves  of  the  odium  attaching  to  Garri 
son's  disunion  sentiments  by  expressing  their  de 
votion  to  the  Union  and  the  Constitution.  Salmon 
P.  Chase,  the  Ohio  leader  of  the  party,  addressed  a 
letter  to  its  convention,  soon  after  assembled  in 
Syracuse,  in  which  he  contrasted  the  political  with 
the  "  come- outer  "  Abolitionists,  and  expressed  the 
conviction  that  the  Constitution  was  opposed  to 
slavery,  which  it  condemned  and  localized,  and  did 
not  support.  Other  members  of  the  party,  among 
them  William  Goodell  and  Charles  T.  Torrey, 
directly  attacked  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society 
on  the  ground  that  by  failing  to  support  independent 
political  action,  it  had  become  a  mere  annex  to  the 
old  parties.  Some  of  the  most  vigorous  lecturers  of 
the  Old  Organization,  particularly  Garrison,  Abby 
Kelley,  and  S.  S.  Foster,  were  accordingly  sent  to 
the  region  where  the  Liberty  party  was  strongest, 
and  where  the  convention  had  just  been  held.  At 
Syracuse,  Foster's  violent  abuse  and  Garrison's 
stern  condemnation  of  the  Church  and  clergy  pro 
voked  disturbances  approaching  a  riot.  Eotten 
eggs  were  thrown,  benches  were  broken,  and  the 
opponents  of  abolition  took  possession  of  the  meet 
ing.  Threats  of  tarring  and  feathering  the  two 
men  were  freely  made,  but  were  not  carried  out. 
At  Utica  the  beginnings  of  disorder  were  quelled 
by  the  firmness  of  the  mayor.  The  exposure  and 
strenuous  exertion  of  the  journey  caused  Garrison 
to  take  cold  ;  and  coming  home  with  his  system  de- 


246          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

bilitated,  he  was  immediately  seized  by  the  con 
tagion  of  scarlet  fever,  then  raging  in  his  house 
hold.  There  was  a  babe  of  a  few  months  to  be 
cared  for, — Charles  Follen  Garrison,  born  September 
9th, — and  Mrs.  Garrison  herself  had  been  seriously 
ill  with  rheumatism.  The  attack  from  which  Gar 
rison  suffered  was  very  severe.  '  <  He  has  been  as 
ill,"  a  friend  wrote,  "  as  a  man  can  be  and  live." 

Toward  the  end  of  January,  1843,  he  returned  to 
his  desk  with  his  health  still  frail,  and  throughout 
the  year  suffered  much  distress  from  a  swelling  in  the 
left  side,  which  never  afterward  left  him.  The  cause, 
not  certainly  known  during  his  life,  was  after  his 
death  ascertained  to  be  an  enlargement  of  the  spleen. 

He  had  now  reached  the  final  phrasing  of  his 
disunion  doctrines.  The  less  vigorous  language  at 
the  head  of  the  editorial  columns  of  the  Liberator 
was  replaced  by  a  resolution  of  his  passed  by  the 
Massachusetts  Auti -Slavery  Society  at  its  annual 
meeting  in  January,  1843:  "Resolved,  That  the 
compact  which  exists  between  the  North  and  the 
South  is  i  a  covenant  with  death  and  an  agreement 
with  helP — involving  both  parties  in  atrocious 
criminality — and  should  be  annulled."  The  time 
was  not  even  yet  ripe  for  a  decisive  vote  by  the 
American  Society,  which  at  its  May  meeting  laid 
on  the  table  a  resolution  of  Garrison's  making  the 
repudiation  of  the  Constitution  a  test  of  consistent 
Abolitionism.  The  general  sympathy  of  the  meet 
ing  with  Garrison's  views  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
although  the  resolutions  were  not  voted,  he  was 
elected  president  for  the  ensuing  year. 


DISUNION  SENTIMENT  247 

The  election  of  Garrison  at  this  time  was  more 
than  a  declaration  of  principles ;  it  was  nailing  the 
colors  to  the  mast  of  a  gallant  but  crippled  vessel, 
over  the  sinking  of  which  its  enemies  were  already 
exulting.  The  weakness  of  the  Old  Organization 
had  become  so  manifest  that  the  leaders  of  the  new 
had  coolly  proposed  a  union  meeting  at  the  1843 
anniversary ;  and  Leavitt,  the  editor  of  the  Eman 
cipatory  had  affirmed  that  to  maintain  the  society  in 
existence  would  probably  require  the  assistance  of 
the  committee  which  had  rebelled  against  Gar 
rison's  ascendency.  Even  the  strongest  and  firmest 
leaders  of  the  American  Anti- Slavery  Society  pro 
posed  to  abandon  the  annual  meeting  in  New  York 
as  an  unnecessary  expense,  and  to  transfer  the 
headquarters  to  Boston  ;  and  only  the  flat  refusal  of 
the  Boston  members  of  the  executive  committee 
deprived  the  enemies  of  the  society  of  this  oppor 
tunity  to  triumph. 

A  letter  from  Edmund  Quincy  to  the  Irish  aboli 
tionist  Eichard  D.  Webb  gives  a  quaint  and  vivid 
picture  of  Garrison  as  presiding  officer  :  "Garrison 
makes  an  excellent  president  at  a  public  meeting 
where  the  order  of  speakers  is  in  some  measure 
arranged,  as  he  has  great  felicity  in  introducing 
and  interlocuting  remarks ;  but  at  a  meeting  for 
debate  he  does  not  answer  so  well,  as  he  is  rather 
apt,  with  all  the  innocence  and  simplicity  in  the 
world,  to  do  all  the  talking  himself.  This,  how 
ever,  we  shall  arrange  by  having  Francis  Jackson 
to  act  as  V.  P.  on  such  occasions.'7 

During  the  year  1843  Garrison's  private  affairs 


248          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKRISON 

were  in  such,  a  condition  that  without  the  strength 
given  him  by  his  devotion  to  a  single  great  object 
he  would  have  become  a  prey  to  paralyzing 
anxiety.  His  health  continued  so  poor  that  in 
June  and  July  he  was  obliged  to  go  for  rest  and 
recuperation  to  the  North  ampton  Community. 
"He  went  there  for  rest,"  laughed  Edmund 
Quincy,  "and  the  way  he  rests  himself  is  to  lecture 
every  night  in  the  neighboring  towns,  and  on 
Sundays  in  Northampton  in  the  open  air  ! "  During 
his  vacation  he  took  a  long  drive  up  and  down  the 
Connecticut  Valley  with  his  wife  and  his  old  friend 
N.  P.  Eogers,  his  companion  in  the  journey 
through  the  White  Mountains.  He  insisted  on 
exhibiting  his  skill  as  a  driver,  and  was  so  mala 
droit  as  to  overturn  the  carriage  while  crossing  a 
stream.  His  wife  and  child  were  almost  drowned, 
but  escaped  with  no  more  serious  results  than  the 
dislocation  of  Mrs.  Garrison's  wrist.  The  injured 
member  was  treated,  with  temporary  success,  but 
was  so  weakened  by  the  accident  that  it  gave  way 
upon  a  second  injury,  becoming  permanently  lame. 
When  Garrison  went  back  from  Northampton  to 
his  work,  he  rented  a  new  house  at  No.  13  Pine 
Street,  Boston,  where  he  made  his  home  until  1850. 
The  receipts  from  the  Liberator  had  fallen  so  low 
that  at  times  he  had  to  borrow  money  from  his 
friends  to  pay  his  ordinary  domestic  expenses. 
The  reasons  for  the  small  circulation  of  the 
Liberator  were  primarily  public  apathy  and  the 
factious  within  the  Abolitionist  body ;  yet  the 
physical  weakness  of  Garrison  and  his  constitu- 


DISUNION  SENTIMENT  249 

tional  procrastination  had  laid  the  conduct  of  the 
paper  open  to  criticism.  His  good  friends,  Edmund 
Quincy  and  Maria  ^Y.  Chapman,  had  as  much  as 
possible  relieved  him  of  his  duties  as  editor  during 
his  long  lecture  tours  and  his  illness  ;  and  Quincy, 
on  yielding  up  his  responsibility,  remonstrated 
with  Garrison  in  the  kindest  and  frankest  manner. 
He  criticized  the  careless  and  hasty  make-up  of  the 
paper,  the  frequent  absence  of  editorials,  and  the 
negligence  displayed  in  some  of  those  that  did 
appear,  and  urged  Garrison  to  do  his  work  more 
systematically.  As  his  sons  say  in  their  biography 
of  their  father,1  "The  volume  of  matter,  in  manu 
script  and  in  print,  relating  to  the  cause  was 
growing  with  tremendous  rapidity.  As  a  rule, 
besides  reading  proof,  Garrison  shared  in  the  me 
chanical  work  of  the  paper.  Add  the  interruptions 
to  which  he  was  exposed  as  the  leader  of  the  Aboli 
tionists  ;  his  lecture  engagements ;  his  anti-slavery 
hospitality ;  his  constant  anxiety  concerning  his 
means  of  support,  and  the  wonder  is  that  he  found 
leisure  to  write  as  much  as  he  did,  whether  for  the 
Liberator,  the  Massachusetts  Board,  the  American 
Society,  or  in  his  own  private  correspondence.'7 

In  January,  1844,  the  agitation  begun  in  1841 
was  continued ;  and  finally,  at  the  May  meeting  of 
the  American  Society  in  New  York,  a  large  ma 
jority  adopted  not  only  an  expression  of  disunion 
principles  from  the  pen  of  Garrison,  but  a  much 
more  violent  resolution  introduced  by  Wendell 
Phillips;— "The  only  exodus  of  the  slave  to 
Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  87. 


250          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABBISON 

freedom,  unless  it  be  one  of  blood,  must  be  over  the 
ruins  of  the  present  American  Church  and  the 
grave  of  the  present  Union. " 

Weighty  protests  against  the  passage  of  the 
resolutions  had  been  made  by  leading  and  devotee  I 
Abolitionists,  especially  by  those  of  legal  anci 
practical  experience,  among  them  Ellis  Gray 
Loring,  David  Lee  Child,  William  A.  White, 
Arnold  Buffum,'  and  James  Miller  McKim,  late.' 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  Nation  and  the  father  of 
Wendell  Phillips  Garrison's  first  wife.  The  oppo 
sition  was  renewed  at  the  New  England  Anti- 
Slavery  Convention  held  later  in  the  same  month 
The  impression  produced  on  Edmund  Quincy  by 
the  debates  at  the  New  England  meeting  is  pre 
sented  with  his  usual  vivacity  : 

"The  debates  were  very  fine.  .  .  .  But  in 
fact  there  was  but  one  side.  The  arguments  in 
favor  of  acting  under  the  existing  government,  or, 
rather,  the  casuistry  by  which  swearing  to  do 
wicked  things  which  at  the  time  you  don't  mean  to 
do  was  justified,  were  enough  to  convince  any 
reasonable  person  of  the  truth  of  what  they  op 
posed.  [The  Eev.  John]  Pierpont's  speech  was  th(> 
most  extraordinary  piece  of  Jesuitism  that  I  ever 
heard.  The  world's  people  among  the  audience 
were  shocked  at  it.  An  old  president  of  a  bank,  no 
Abolitionist,  who  was  in  from  curiosity,  told  me 
that  the  business  of  the  world  could  not  go  on  for  u 
day  on  his  principles,  if  fairly  carried  out ;  that 
they  struck  at  the  root  of  all  human  society,  and 
would  destroy  all  confidence  of  man  in  man.  And 


DISUNION  SENTIMENT  251 

yet  this  is  the  only  process  by  which  he  cau  recon 
cile  his  support  of  the  Liberty  party  with  morality. 
The  vote  surprised  us  all.  At  one  time  we 
thought  it  might  not  pass.  Latterly  we  thought  it 
would  be  carried  by  a  small  majority.  But  when 
the  roll  was  called,  it  seemed  as  if  there  were  no 
'nays*  at  all,  they  came  dropping  in  at  such  distant 
intervals.  The  vote  stood  250  to  24."  ' 

Among  the  twenty-four  nays  were  those  of  Maria 
White,  William  A.  White's  sister,  and  of  his  col 
lege  friend  and  her  betrothed,  James  Russell 
Lowell.  The  two  young  people,— "  the  glorious 
girl  with  the  spirit  eyes,'7 — Lowell's  own  words — 
and  her  lover,  "  slight  and  small,  with  rosy  cheeks 
and  starry  eyes  and  wavy  hair  parted  in  the  mid 
dle  "  (such  is  the  picture  of  him  drawn  by  Dr.  E. 
E.  Hale)— had  listened  with  the  ardor  of  pure, 
warm  youth  to  the  myriad  voices  of  their  time. 
Both  had  long  held  abolition  principles,  and 
within  a  few  years  each  had  formally  entered  the 
Anti-Slavery  Society.  Miss  White  and  Lowell, 
under  her  influence,  had  also  joined  the  u  temper 
ance  movement."  Both  were  genuine  poets,  though 
unequally  gifted  with  the  power  of  expression. 
Imaginative  sympathy  and  a  sense  of  history  pre 
vented  them  from  being  entirely  in  harmony  with 
their  associates.  Miss  White  could  see  how  the 
Abolitionists  themselves  were  sacrificed  to  their 
philanthropic  energy.  "They  do  not  modify  their 
words  and  voices.  They  are  like  people  who  live 
with  the  deaf,  and  hear  waterfalls,  whose  voices  be- 
*Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  111. 


252          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABBISON 

come  high  and  harsh."  No  matter  how  intense  the 
anti-slavery  spirit  of  Lowell  and  Miss  White,  they 
themselves  would  never  become  hardened  or  nar 
rowed.  They  could  have  sentiments  about  their 
country,  and  love  it  with  all  its  imperfections.  As 
Lowell  writes,1  "I  do  not  agree  with  the  abolition 
ist  leaders  in  their  disunion  and  non-voting  theories 
.  .  .  They  treat  ideas  as  ignorant  persons  do 
cherries.  They  think  them  unwholesome  unless 
they  are  swallowed  stones  and  all."  Lowell  soon 
after  undertook  the  duties  of  editorial  writer  for 
several  anti-slavery  papers;  and  the  contrast  be 
tween  his  articles  and  Garrison's  is  a  striking  index 
to  the  characters  of  the  two  men.  Garrison  for 
thirty-five  years  kept  sending  in  blows  over  his  op 
ponent's  heart,  and  was  ready  at  the  end  of  every 
round  to  begin  a  new  one  in  the  old  way,  until 
his  antagonist  should  be  beaten  down.  Lowell,  in 
his  lightest  papers,  brings  the  matter  sub  specie 
ceternitatiSj  and  makes  the  literary  spirit  always 
felt  by  showing  a  certain  detached  interest  in  the 
situation,  so  that  his  papers  may  still  be  read  with 
delight,  something  that  cannot  in  all  fairness  be 
said  of  much  that  Garrison  wrote,  forceful  and 
sound  English  as  it  mostly  is.  Such  articles  must 
at  the  time  have  been  far  less  effective  than  Gar 
rison's,  as  lacking  deadly  intensity  and  immediate- 
ness  of  purpose.  Lowell's  verses  and  wit  must 
often  have  seemed  to  his  associates  mere  "Delilahs 
of  the  imagination,"  seducing  him  from  his  more 
strenuous  duties  as  a  reformer.  The  "nays"  of 
1  Letters,  Vol.  I,  p.  125. 


DISUNION  SENTIMENT  253 

Maria  White  and  James  Eussell  Lowell  were  the 
response  to  the  cry  for  disunion  made  by  poetry 
and  the  imagination. 

The  agitation  for  the  disunion  declaration  re 
newed  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Old  Organization  ;  and 
in  time  the  declaration  was  accepted  in  New  Eng 
land  and  the  Middle  States,  which  antedated  the 
formation  of  the  Union.  The  Western  Abolition 
ists,  inhabitants  of  states  which  were  the  offspring 
of  the  Union,  and  which  had  by  Federal  action 
been  " dedicated  to  freedom,"  could  not  be  brought 
to  approve  disunion.  The  Ohio  society  went  for 
mally  on  record  as  opposing  any  narrowing  of  the 
basis  of  the  general  abolitionist  movement. 

That  body  of  "New  Organization "  Abolitionists 
who  had  formed  the  Liberty  party  had  of  course  no 
interest  in  the  discussion  except  as  a  justification  of 
their  policy,  and  as  capital  against  their  rivals,  the 
"  Old  Organization."  For  the  view  held  by  many 
of  them  that  the  Constitution  was  essentially  an 
anti-slavery  document,  Garrison  had  nothing  but 
scorn.  "The  truth  is,"  he  wrote,  "the  misnamed 
Liberty  party  is  under  the  control  of  as  ambitious, 
unprincipled,  and  crafty  leaders  as  is  either  the 
Whig  or  Democratic  party  ;  and  no  other  proof  of 
this  assertion  is  needed  than  their  unblushing 
denial  of  the  great  object  of  the  national  compact, 
namely,  union  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  colored  popu 
lation  of  the  United  States.  Their  new  interpreta 
tions  of  the  Constitution  are  a  bold  rejection  of  the 
facts  of  history,  and  a  gross  insult  to  the  intelligence 
of  the  age,  and  certainly  never  can  be  carried  into 


254          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

effect  without  dissolving  the  UnioD  by  provoking  a 
civil  war."  l    It  is  perhaps  in  the  last  words  that  th<i 
heart  of  Garrison's  opposition  to  the  Union  is  to  b<> 
found.     In  prompt  disunion  he  saw  the  only  alter 
native  to  war  as  a  means  of  escape  from  the  abso 
lute  domination  of  the  whole  country  by  slavery  ; 
and  war  he  was  bound  by  his  principles  to  do  hiu 
utmost  to  prevent.     In  this  contest  he  had  the  bet 
ter  of  the  logic,  for  both  sides  rested  on  the  "fals<? 
bottom  of  American  political  thinking,"  the  Con 
stitution ;  but  the  truth  and  the  future  were  with 
his    opponents.     His    function    was    to    stir    and 
awaken  the  slumbering  conscience  of  the  people 
The  men  whom  he  scorned  and   reprobated  had 
likewise  a  work  to  do  in  giving  practical  form  to 
the  indistinct  demands,  hardly  more  than  senti 
ments,  of  the  North. 

The  success  of  the  disunion  propaganda  added  no 
new  members  to  the  abolition  societies.  The  earlier 
contest  followed  by  the  great  schism,  it  might  seem, 
would  have  driven  out  all  but  the  most  uncompro 
mising  idealists,  yet  the  mooting  of  the  new  ques 
tion  decimated  even  this  Gideon's  troop.  Argue  as 
Garrison  might  to  show  that  the  adoption  of  the 
disunion  declaration  was  a  mere  majority  vote,  the 
passage  of  the  declaration  made  the  acceptance 
of  the  disunion  idea  in  fact  a  test,  a  touchstone. 
of  thoroughgoing  Abolitionism.  There  were  few 
Americans  who  could  bear  to  hear  the  words  of 
Wendell  Phillips,  when  the  crowd  in  Faneuil  Hall 
howled  down  the  speakers  at  a  meeting  called  in 
1  Life,  Vol.  HI,  p.  116. 


DISUNION  SENTIMENT  255 

1842  to  protest  against  the  return  of  the  fugitive 
slave  Latiiner :  "When  I  look  at  these  crowded 
thousands,  and  see  them  trample  on  their  con 
sciences  and  the  rights  of  their  fellow  men  at  the 
bidding  of  a  piece  of  parchment,  I  say,  my  CURSE 
be  on  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 

It  is  probable  that  criticism  of  Garrison's  disunion 
sentiments  will  outlast  all  other  objections  to  his 
marvelous  career — to  his  "  infidelity, "  his  com- 
mination  of  the  clergy  and  of  reputable  men  with 
whom  he  did  not  agree,  his  peace  and  non-resistant 
views.  His  preachment  of  disunion  and  his  hatred 
of  the  Constitution  were  proofs,  so  it  has  been  and 
will  continue  to  be  said,  of  disloyalty  to  his  native 
laud,  even  then  with  all  its  limitations  and  faults 
no  mean  country,  of  which  he  was  in  the  usual  ac 
ceptance  of  the  word,  a  citizen,  receiving  its  protec 
tion  and  sharing  its  undoubted  blessings.  It  must 
be  said,  without  hope,  however,  of  definitely  dis 
posing  in  some  minds  of  the  charge,  that  Garrison 
really  saw  no  other  way  out  of  the  difficulty  con 
fronting  a  determined  South  and  a  very  unde 
termined  North.  He  did  not  believe  and  repeatedly 
said  that  he  did  not  believe  that  the  South  would 
secede. 

The  shot  that  boomed  sullenly  over  Charleston  har 
bor  on  that  April  day  in  1861,  calling  on  the  United 
States  of  America  to  surrender  its  own  property  to 
a  seceded  portion  of  it,  was  as  great  and  as  genuine 
a  surprise  to  William  Lloyd  Garrison  as  to  every 
other  inhabitant  of  the  Northern  states.  Well 
might  he  now  claim  that  the  Union  was  dissolved, 


256          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

in  fact  if  not  in  theory.  Out  of  this  dissolution 
arose  a  new  union  of  states,  and  to  this  Union  he 
could  and  did  adhere  to  the  extent  of  supporting, 
without  subserviency,  the  Republican  party  after  its 
period  of  decline  had  set  in.  Another  surprise  in 
store  for  him  was  the  immediate  rally  of  vast  num 
bers  of  the  Democratic  party  to  the  aid  of  this  now 
dismembered  Union.  He  could  not  have  foreseen 
such  an  event.  So  far  as  he  could  gaze  into  the 
future  he  saw  only  an  wrasse— a  union  to  be  con 
tinued  only  with  slavery — and  this  he  could  not 
support.  If  this  be  treason  then  his  hostile  critics 
will  have  to  make  the  most  of  it  for  all  time  to 
come. 

Garrison  at  this  period  had  other  subjects  of 
thought  than  disunion.  The  year  1844  saw  the 
political  campaign  ending  in  Folk's  election.  In 
that  year  the  question  of  the  annexation  of  Texas 
was  before  the  American  people  ;  and  a  multitude 
of  topics  connected  with  public  policy  called  for 
discussion  in  the  Liberator.  Then  took  place  the 
acts  of  extraordinary  violence  offered  to  the  learned 
and  upright  commissioner,  Samuel  Hoar,  when  he 
went  to  Charleston  to  collect  evidence  preparatory 
to  a  trial  before  the  Federal  court  for  the  purpose  of 
establishing  the  rights  of  Massachusetts  seamen  of 
color  in  South  Carolina.  In  the  same  year  the  Eev. 
Charles  T.  Torrey  was  imprisoned  in  Baltimore  for 
activity  on  behalf  of  the  slave.  Garrison  sent  such 
aid  in  money  to  his  old  opponent  as  lie  could  afford, 
and  strove  to  excite  public  detestation  of  his  im 
prisonment.  Torrey  gratefully  acknowledged  Gar- 


DISUNION  SENTIMENT  257 

rison's  magnanimity,  and  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  prac 
tically  expressed  repentance  for  his  earlier  course  in 
contributing  to  the  establishment  of  the  New  Or 
ganization.  But  the  incident  which  caused  Garri 
son  most  concern  in  this  year  was  a  painful  diffi 
culty  with  his  old  friend  Eogers,  in  whose  comrade 
ship  he  had  taken  such  joy.  Kogers  was  an  extreme 
"uo-organizatiouist."  A  president,  a  board,  or  an 
executive  committee  was  feared  by  him  little  less, 
and  abhorred  with  no  more  allowance,  than  a  poli 
tician  or  a  slaveholder.  A  contest  arose  as  to  the 
title  to  the  Herald  of  Freedom,  the  New  Hamp 
shire  anti- slavery  paper,  of  which  Eogers  was  then 
editor  and  his  son-in-law,  J.  E.  French,  the  printer. 
Both  were  opposed  to  the  executive  committee  of 
the  New  Hampshire  Anti-Slavery  Society.  Garri 
son  took  the  side  of  the  committee,  and  Eogers 
never  forgave  him.  In  this  year,  finally,  Garrison's 
heart  was  gladdened  by  the  birth  of  a  daughter, 
Helen  Frances,  following  four  sons.  She  became 
the  wife  of  Henry  Villard. 


CHAPTBE  XI 

TEXAS  AND    THE  MEXICAN  WAR 

AMONG  the  first  effects  of  the  growing  strength  of 
anti-slavery  sentiment  among  the  people  of  the 
North  was  the  energetic  opposition  to  the  annexa 
tion  of  Texas  and  the  war  with  Mexico.  The  forces 
active  in  causing  the  annexation  of  Texas  were  by 
no  means  so  simple  as  has  often  been  represented. 
On  the  part  of  the  leaders  who  planned  and  carried 
out  the  measure,  it  was  a  coldly  devised  and 
adroitly  executed  political  act,  intended  to  enlarge 
the  area  and  increase  the  strength  of  slavery  in  the 
United  States.  Yet  it  was  not,  properly  speaking, 
a  "  conspiracy,"  for  the  means  would  not  have  been 
condemned  if  the  end  were  approved,  and  those 
who  employed  the  means  believed  in  the  end.  As 
regards  the  public  support  given  to  annexation,  the 
real  strength  of  the  movement  lay  in  an  idea,  a  sen 
timent,  of  national  greatness  and  unity,  which 
looked  toward  bringing  as  large  an  area  of  terri 
tory  as  possible  into  the  United  States,  arid  toward 
extending  the  country  from  ocean  to  ocean  and  from 
the  Great  Lakes  to  the  Gulf,  thus  making  it  the 
greatest  and  most  powerful  of  all  nations, — com 
mercially  self-sufficient,  overwhelmingly  mighty  in 
population  and  wealth,  a  world  in  itself. 

This  idea  was  not  created  by  reason,  but  by  the 
much  more  powerful  forces  of  imagination  and 


TEXAS  AND  THE  MEXICAN  WAB    259 

emotion.  Texas,  at  the  time  of  the  renewal  of  the 
efforts  to  annex  it,  had  achieved  its  independence 
of  Mexico,  was  populated  by  Americans,  and  was 
in  effect  a  sister  state  to  Mississippi  and  Louisiana. 
There  were  genuine  and  not  unnatural  fears,  zeal 
ously  encouraged  by  the  diplomacy  of  Texas,  that 
European  states  would  gain  a  preponderance  in  the 
new  republic.  If  the  sectional  division  between  the 
slaveholding  and  the  uon-slaveholding  states  had 
not  been  in  existence,  there  would  have  been  no 
hesitation  or  delay  in  carrying  out  annexation  ;  and 
the  sentiment  of  nationality,  the  vision  of  a  vaster 
union,  was  sufficiently  strong  to  quiet  in  the  minds 
of  a  great  proportion  of  the  citizens  of  the  North 
the  vague  and  incoherent  stirrings  of  their  half- 
formed  moral  revulsion  against  slavery.  Southern 
politicians,  of  course,  were  jubilant  over  the 
prospect  of  adding  a  new  slave  state  as  a  make 
weight  against  the  advancing  greatness  of  the 
Northwest.  Nationalism  was  once  more  linked 
with  slavery  ;  and  once  more,  to  the  eyes  of  Aboli 
tionists,  the  Constitution  appeared  as  ua  covenant 
with  death  and  an  agreement  with  hell." 

Nor  did  the  prospect  of  annexing  Texas  fill  with 
horror  the  professed  Abolitionists  alone.  The 
legislature  of  Massachusetts  voted  that  annexation 
would  not  be  binding  on  the  state, — a  vote  which, 
literally  interpreted,  was  an  expression  of  disunion 
principles.  At  meetings  called  by  politicians  to 
protest  against  annexation,  Garrison  was  received 
with  respect  by  men  who  would  have  mobbed  him 
fifteen  years  earlier.  The  burden  of  his  speeches 


260         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKEISON 

was  bis  Delenda  est  Carthago, — "  No  union  with 
slaveholders  ! ' '  Charles  Sumner  bears  interesting 
testimony  to  Garrison's  power  as  an  orator  on  one 
of  these  occasions.  ' '  He  spoke  with  natural 
eloquence.  Hillard  spoke  exquisitely.  His  words 
descended  in  a  golden  shower  ;  but  Garrison's  fell 
in  fiery  rain.  It  seemed  doubtful  at  one  time  if  the 
Abolitionists  would  not  succeed  in  carrying  the 
convention."  l  In  taking  part  in  these  meetings, 
Garrison  was  of  course  engaging  in  political 
activity  ;  but  since  in  point  of  fact  he  never  really 
kept  out  of  politics,  and  was  now  pursuing  a  line 
of  conduct  that  involved  no  submission  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  that  seemed 
to  him  to  promise  an  escape  from  civil  war,  he  is 
not  properly  chargeable  with  any  real  inconsistency 
for  taking  the  course  he  followed.  His  efforts  and 
those  of  the  men  with  whom  he  was  for  the  time 
associated  were  unsuccessful.  Even  in  Xew  Eng 
land  the  national  spirit  in  the  end  proved  the 
stronger.  In  the  West  there  was  a  lively  enthusi 
asm  for  the  addition  to  the  power  of  the  country 
which  aversion  to  the  extension  of  slave  territory 
could  not  overcome.  Finally,  the  annexation  of 
Texas  was  consummated,  shocking  and  discourag 
ing  all  who  shared  in  the  anti-slavery  movement. 

During  the  summer  and  autumn  of  184G  Garrison 
was  again  in  the  British  Isles.  The  occasion  of  his 
going  was  a  fierce  agitation  which  followed  the 
acceptance  by  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland  of 
money  subscribed  by  the  evangelical  churches  of 

lLifc,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  137. 


TEXAS  AND  THE  MEXICAN  WAR    261 

Charleston.  The  Free  Church  owed  its  origin  to 
a  belief  in  the  right  of  the  congregations  to  con 
trol  the  appointment  of  their  own  ministers,  and 
it  received  aid  from  those  all  over  the  world  who 
sympathized  with  that  principle.  As  it  happened, 
public  sentiment  in  Great  Britain,  just  at  the 
time  of  the  1 1  ecumenical  collection ' '  for  the  bene 
fit  of  the  Free  Church,  had  been  outraged  by  the 
condemnation  to  death  at  Charleston  of  John  L. 
Brown,  a  young  northern  white  man,  for  aiding  in 
the  escape  of  a  slave  woman  of  mixed  blood  whom 
he  loved  and  purposed  to  marry.  The  sentence 
was  not  executed,  but  the  horror  felt  in  England 
and  Scotland  did  not  abate.  All  over  the  latter 
country  spread  the  excitement  against  taking  the 
tainted  money  from  Charleston.  "Old  Scotland 
boils  like  a  pot,"  wrote  back  Frederick  Douglass. 
Splashes  of  red  paint  typifying  the  slaves'  blood 
staining  the  gift  were  daubed  on  walls  and  steps, 
and  the  whole  town  of  Edinburgh  was  placarded 
with  the  words,  "Send  back  the  money !"  The 
money,  however,  was  kept  as  Garrison  predicted 
that  it  would  be.  "  The  laity  I  believe  would  send 
it  back,  but  the  divinity  prevents  it." 

Between  the  American  Abolitionists  and  a  large 
body  of  the  English  people  there  was  a  close  bond. 
The  imperial  situation  of  Great  Britain  compelled 
its  citizens  to  have  regard  to  the  treatment  of 
dependent  populations  at  a  distance  from  the  centre 
of  government ;  and  at  least  from  the  time  of  the 
impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings,  benevolently 
energetic  men  had  always  been  ready  to  work  upon 


262         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABBISOtf 

public  opinion  in  behalf  of  those  who,  in  their 
belief,  were  subjected  to  tyranny  by  u  the  man  on 
the  spot,'7  and  thus  to  bring  the  great  weight  of 
imperial  power  to  bear  upon  those  suspected  of 
oppression.  The  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  and 
the  emancipation  of  the  negroes  in  the  West  Indies 
had  been  effected  by  such  philanthropists.  English 
public  opinion  had  come  to  detest  slavery,  and 
those  alike  who  were  stirred  by  an  independent 
love  of  freedom  and  who  drifted  with  the  current 
of  convention  felt  sympathy  with  the  American 
Abolitionists,  and  respect  for  their  leader.  A 
number  of  Englishmen  cooperated  with  him  and 
aided  his  cause  as  much  as  possible, — often,  it 
may  be  remarked,  with  a  disregard  for  patriotic 
prepossessions  which  would  not  have  been  wel 
come  to  any  one  whose  Americanism  was  less 
detached  than  Garrison's.  Some  of  these  English 
friends  and  admirers,  especially  George  Thompson, 
urged  the  Emancipation  Society  to  invite  Garrison 
to  visit  England,  and  to  be  present  at  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Conference  in  London  in  August.  The 
mild  climate,  the  pleasant  social  relations,  and  the 
freedom  from  many  anxieties  which  Garrison  found 
in  England  always  made  a  visit  to  that  country 
beneficial  to  his  health  and  spirits.  Moreover,  at 
the  moment  of  receiving  the  invitation  of  his  Eng 
lish  friends,  it  seemed  important  to  stigmatize  the 
Free  Church  for  fellowship  with  slaveholders,  and 
to  defend  himself  from  the  retaliatory  charges  of 
infidelity.  A  fund  to  pay  his  expenses  was  raised 
in  America,  and  he  set  out  in  July.  In  England  he 


TEXAS  AND  THE  MEXICAN  WAE    263 

addressed  several  reform  organizations,  speaking 
with  an  asperity  that  irritated  many  of  his  hearers. 
He  was  active  in  establishing  an  Anti- Slavery 
League  to  cooperate  with  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  and  was  "trotted  about  from  meet 
ing  to  meeting,  in  public  and  in  private,"  visiting 
Ireland  and  canvassing  Scotland  twice.  On  the 
later  journey  throughout  Scotland,  the  anti-slavery 
ladies  of  Edinburgh  made  him  a  present  of  a  silver 
tea-service,  on  which  he  had  to  pay  duty  when  he 
brought  it  home.  About  a  month  after  his  return 
occurred  the  reunion  of  the  Abolitionists  at  the 
an ti- slavery  bazaar,  which  Lowell  describes  wittily 
in  the  composition  in  Hudibrastic  verse  from 
which  the  description  of  the  three  chief  anti- 
clericals  has  already  been  quoted  : 

"  There's  Garrison,  his  features  very 
Benign  for  an  incendiary, 
Beaming  forth  sunshine  through  his  glasses 
On  the  surrounding  lads  and  lasses, 
(No  bee  could  blither  be  or  brisker,) — 
A  Pickwick  somehow  turned  John  Ziska, 
His  bump  of  firmness  swelling  up 
Like  a  rye  cupcake  from  its  cup. 
And  there,  too,  was  his  English  tea-set, 
Which  in  his  ear  a  kind  of  flea  set, 
His  Uncle  Samuel  for  its  beauty 
Demanding  sixty  dollars  duty. 
('Twas  natural  Sam  should  serve  his  trunk  ill, 
For  G.,  you  know,  has  cut  his  uncle.)" 

The  rest  of  1846  and  the  greater  part  of  1847  were 
spent  by  Garrison  in  the  usual  routine  of  his  life, 


264         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

writing  editorials,  lecturing,  aud  attending  con 
ventions.  He  continued  to  denounce  the  annexatior 
of  Texas  and  the  consequent  war  with  Mexico,  bul 
instead  of  regarding  the  matter  as  he  had  at  first, 
merely  in  the  light  of  a  triumph  of  diabolism,  he 
saw  some  promise  for  the  future  in  the  aroused 
feeling  of  the  North.  He  sustained  the  Wilniol 
Proviso,  though  without  enthusiasm,  disunion  bein^ 
the  only  genuinely  effective  policy  in  his  opinion. 
Finally,  he  did  not  cease  to  urge  his  non- resistance 
and  "come-outer"  views  of  church  and  state,  evei 
provoking  and  ever  repelling  charges  of  infidelity. 
In  August,  1847,  he  first  crossed  the  Alleghanies, 
going  at  the  invitation  of  the  Western  Anti-Slavery 
Society  to  address  the  convention  at  New  Lyme, 
Ohio.  His  plan  was  to  travel  out  through  Pennsyl 
vania  and  back  through  New  York,  and  to  deliver 
addresses  on  the  way  in  both  states.  Ohio  had  in 
its  history  much  to  interest  the  Abolitionists. 
Liberty-loving  New  Euglanders  had  begun  the 
settlement  of  the  Western  Reserve,  under  the  ordi 
nance  of  1787,  which  forbade  slavery  in  the  u  North 
west.- '  In  Ohio,  slavery  was  not  as  in  New  England, 
a  monster  of  the  mind,  but  a  dread  fact,  in  tangible 
existence  across  the  river  which  formed  its  southern 
boundary.  Hence  the  anti-slavery  movement  in 
the  western  state  was  more  intense  and  picturesque 
than  in  New  England.  It  had  never  sunk  into  such 
lethargy  as  had  the  eastern  movement  at  the  time 
when  Garrison's  activity  began,  but  had  continued 
in  vigorous  life  with  little  dependence  on  him.  On 
account  of  the  geographical  situation  of  the  state, 


TEXAS  AND  THE  MEXICAN  WAE    265 

it  included  some  of  the  most  active  lines  of  the 
Underground  Railroad.  In  Ohio  the  Church  had 
exhibited  a  very  unusual  opposition  to  slavery. 
There  Weld  had  led  the  secession  from  Lane  Semi 
nary,  and  there  was  Oberlin  College.  There  were 
the  political  leaders,  Chase,  Morris,  and  Giddings. 
There,  too,  were  the  abolitionist  clergymen,  the 
eccentric  but  forceful  Finney  and  the  resolute  and 
brilliant  Mahau.  In  spite  of  Garrison's  ill  health, 
it  would  have  been  strange  if  he  had  not  looked 
forward  to  the  journey  with  pleasure. 

The  railroad  from  Philadelphia  toward  Pittsburg 
ended  at  Chambersburg,  on  the  eastern  slope  of  the 
mountains.  Garrison's  comments  on  his  journey 
through  Pennsylvania  sound  strange  to  the  present 
day  traveler  who  compares  the  experiences  of  a 
passage  by  the  same  line  on  the  steel  cars  and  over 
the  smooth  road-bed  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad, 
with  those  of  the  journey,  say  from  Boston  to 
Providence.  He  says,  "  Though  the  cars  (com 
pared  with  our  Eastern  ones)  look  as  if  they  were 
made  a  century  ago,  and  are  quite  uncomfortable, 
yet  the  ride  was  far  from  being  irksome,  on  account 
of  the  all-pervading  beauty  and  opulence  of  the 
country  through  which  we  passed . "  l  The  passenger 
cars  of  the  time  were  constructed  on  the  character 
istic  American  plan,  with  a  passageway  down  the 
middle  ;  but  the  best  of  them  were  roughly  built 
and  uncomfortable.  An  English  traveler  calls  them 
long  wooden  boxes. 

Garrison's  companion  was  Frederick  Douglass, 

1  Liberator,  Vol.  XVII,  p.  135. 


266          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEEISON 

who  was  subjected  to  frequent  insult  and  sometimes 
to  violence.  When  the  travelers  reached  Chambers 
burg,  they  found  that  their  tickets  obliged  them  tc 
separate,  one  going  on  a  stage  ahead  of  the  other. 
The  weather  was  very  hot,  and  Garrison  describee; 
the  stage  journey  through  the  mountains  as  quite 
overpowering.  It  seemed  to  him  almost  interim 
uable, — almost  equal  to  the  trip  across  the  Atlantic. 
After  the  parting,  Douglass  was  not  permitted  to  sii; 
at  the  eating  table  on  the  way,  and  for  two  days  anc. 
nights  scarcely  tasted  a  morsel  of  food.  The  conse 
queuce  was  a  condition  of  great  debility,  which  pre 
vented  him  from  speaking  with  effect. 

The  audiences  at  most  of  the  frequent  meetings 
on  the  way  were  kindly  disposed,  except  for  oc 
casional  demonstrations  against  Douglass  ;  and  those 
at  Norristown  and  Pittsburg  were  enthusiastic. 
On  the  other  hand,  at  New  Brighton,  "  a  small  vil 
lage  of  eight  hundred  inhabitants,  .  .  .  the 
people  generally  remain  incorrigible.  .  .  .  No 
place  could  be  obtained  for  our  meeting  excepting 
the  upper  room  of  a  large  store,  which  was  crowded  to 
excess,  afternoon  and  evening,  several  hundred  per 
sons  being  present,  and  many  other  persons  not 
being  able  to  obtain  admittance.  In  the  evening, 
there  were  some  symptoms  of  pro-slavery  rowdyism 
outside  the  building,  but  nothing  beyond  the  yell 
ing  of  young  men  and  boys.  Over  our  heads  in 
the  room,  were  piled  up  across  the  beams  many 
barrels  of  flour  ;  and  while  we  were  speaking,  tin- 
mice  were  busy  in  nibbling  at  them,  causing  their 
contents  to  whiten  some  of  our  dresses,  and  think- 


TEXAS  AND  THE  MEXICAN  WAE    267 

ing,  perchance,  that  our  speeches  needed  to  be  a 
little  more  floury"  4 — a  pun  so  atrocious  that  it 
could  have  proceeded  only  from  a  man  of  kindly 
and  simple  nature,  quite  innocent  of  any  sense  of 
intellectual  guilt. 

The  anniversary  of  the  Western  Anti-Slavery 
Society  was  held  August  18-20.  The  accommo 
dations  of  the  village  of  New  Lyine  were  inade 
quate  for  the  expected  concourse  ;  and  a  tent  had 
been  set  up,  capable  of  holding  an  audience  of  four 
thousand.  On  the  night  after  Garrison's  arrival 
the  tent  collapsed,  in  a  storm  of  wind  and  rain, 
into  a  huge  water-soaked  mass  of  canvas,  and  was 
put  up  again  with  great  difficulty.  The  interest  of 
the  meeting  centred  in  the  debates  between  the 
Disunionists  and  the  political  Abolitionists.  It  is 
pleasant  to  observe  with  what  warmth  Garrison 
recognized  the  moral  courage  and  the  valuable  serv 
ice  of  the  congressmen,  Giddings  and  Tilden, 
opposed  as  he  was  on  principle  to  their  acceptance 
of  the  Constitution.  The  imported  speakers,  Garri 
son,  Douglass,  and  Stephen  S.  Foster,  were  the 
leaders  against  the  Union,  while  Giddings  was  its 
chief  defender.  Garrison  wrote  :  "  Mr.  G[iddiugs] 
exhibited  the  utmost  kindness  and  generosity  toward 
us,  and  alluded  to  me  in  very  handsome  terms,  as 
also  to  Douglass ;  but  his  arguments  were  very 
specious,  and  I  think  we  had  with  us  the  understand 
ing  and  conscience  of  an  overwhelming  majority  of 
those  who  listened  to  the  debate.  As  a  large  pro 
portion  of  the  Abolitionists  in  this  section  of  the 

1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  194. 


268          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

country  belong  to  the  Liberty  party,  we  have  had 
to  bring  them  to  the  same  test  of  judgment  as 
the  Whigs  and  the  Democrats,  for  supporting  a 
pro-slavery  Constitution  j  but  they  are  generally 
very  candid,  and  incomparably  more  kind  and 
friendly  to  us  than  those  of  their  party  at  the 
East."  ' 

The  courtesy  of  Giddings  was  no  doubt  perfectly 
sincere ;  but  its  warmth  may  have  been  increased 
by  the  fact  that  Garrison  was  his  unconscious  polit 
ical  ally.  The  Western  Eeserve  had  been  a  home 
of  the  Liberty  party  ;  but  with  the  evident  political 
failure  of  the  party,  the  way  was  open  to  the  Garri- 
sonian  Abolitionists  to  proclaim  their  more  radical 
doctrines.  Abby  Kelley  and  Foster  had  evangel 
ized  the  region  and  had  prepared  the  way  for  Gar 
rison.  Giddiugs  at  this  time  was  striving  desper 
ately  to  hold  to  the  Whigs,  and  proclaiming  that 
the  objects  of  the  Abolitionists  could  best  be  reached 
without  the  new  party.  The  argument  of  Garrison, 
as  the  recognized  leader  of  radical  Abolitionism, 
was  a  powerful  though  unintentional  reinforcement 
to  Giddiugs' s  position. 

Garrison  records  the  impression  made  upon  him, 
as  the  dense  mass  of  people  moved  off  home  at  the 
close  of  the  meeting,  by  the  long  array  of  vehicles, 
dispersing  in  every  direction,  some  to  go  as  far  as 
a  hundred  miles.  One  old  colored  man  rode  on 
horseback  three  hundred  miles  to  be  present.  The 
meeting  over,  the  journey  home  began.  Garrison 
was  driven  from  town  to  town  of  the  Western  Be- 

1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  197. 


TEXAS  AXD  THE  MEXICAN  WAR    269 

serve  by  local  friends  of  the  cause,  speaking,  several 
times  in  the  large  tent,  to  good  audiences  every 
where.  The  engagements  made  for  him  were  so 
many  that  he  had  no  time  at  all  for  rest.  Doug 
lass's  weakness  and  sore  throat  continued  for  sev 
eral  days  and  served  to  increase  the  burden  upon 
Garrison's  shoulders.  On  the  way,  he  had  the  satis 
faction  of  visiting  Obeiiin.  The  institution  inter 
ested  him  as  an  anti-slavery  college,  to  the  founding 
of  which  he  had  given  a  helpful  word,  and  as  an 
important  station  on  the  Underground  Eailroad. 
When  he  reached  the  college  the  graduation  exer 
cises  of  the  theological  seminary  were  taking  place. 
' '  Two  of  the  graduates  took  occasion  to  denounce 
'the  fanaticism  of  Come-outerism  and  Disunion- 
ism,'  and  to  make  a  thrust  at  those  who  in  the 
guise  of  anti-slavery,  temperance,  etc.,  are  endeavor 
ing  to  promote  'infidelity'  !  Prof.  [Charles  G.] 
Fiuuey l  in  his  address  to  the  graduates,  gave  them 
some  very  good  advice — telling  them  that  denounc 
ing  Come-out erisrn,  on  the  one  hand,  or  talking  about 
the  importance  of  preserving  harmony  and  union  in 
the  Church  on  the  other,  would  avail  them  nothing. 
They  must  go  heartily  into  all  the  reforms  of  the 
age,  and  be  'anti-devil  all  over' — and  if  they  were 
not  ready  to  do  this  he  advised  them  to  go  to  the 
workshop,  the  farm,  or  anywhere  else,  rather  than 
into  the  ministry.  This  was  talking  very  plainly — 
but  if  these  young  men  would  attempt  to  carry  his 

1  Fourteen  years  back  pastor  of  the  Chatham  Street  Chapel  in 
New  York  when  it  was  raided  by  the  Tamniatiy  Hall  mob  on 
the  organization  of  the  New  York  City  Anti-Slavery  Society. 


270          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARBISON 

advice  into  practice,  where  could  they  find  church*  s 
and  salaries'?"  * 

The  next  day  but  one  the  visitors  began  a  series 
of  meetings,  speaking  chiefly  upon  Come-outerism 
from  church  and  state.  President  Mahan  entered 
the  debate,  defending  the  United  States  Constitu 
tion  as  an  anti-slavery  instrument,  and  consequently 
supporting  the  Liberty  party ;  but  as  Garrison 
thought,  he  did  not  make  a  strong  impression. 
Among  the  persons  whom  Garrison  met  at  Oberlin 
was  Miss  Lucy  Stone,  afterward  well  known  as  a  lec 
turer  in  favor  of  woman  suffrage.  He  said  :  "  She  is 
a  very  superior  young  woman,  and  has  a  soul  as  fr<;e 
as  the  air,  and  is  preparing  to  go  forth  as  a  lecturer, 
particularly  in  vindication  of  the  rights  of  woman. 
Her  course  here  has  been  very  firm  and  independent, 
and  she  has  caused  no  small  uneasiness  to  the  spirit 
of  sectarianism  in  the  institution." 

The  labors  of  Garrison  in  carrying  his  message 
from  town  to  town  of  the  Western  Keserve  were 
prodigious.  Between  August  17th,  when  he  arrive  d 
at  New  Lynie,  and  September  llth,  when  he  deliv 
ered  his  last  address  at  Cleveland,  twenty-six  days 
in  all,  he  made  between  thirty-five  and  forty  ad 
dresses,  each  one  of  considerable  length.  He  luid 
been  much  exposed  to  chills,  speaking  several  times 
in  damp  tents,  and  once  at  least  being  soaked  by  a 
cold  rain-storm.  The  season  was  the  malarious  laie 
summer  and  autumn  ;  and  at  Cleveland  he  was 
prostrated  by  a  fever,  apparently  of  typhoid  nature. 
His  devoted  friend  Henry  C.  Wright  hurried  to  his 
1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  203. 


TEXAS  AND  THE  MEXICAN  WAK    271 

bedside  as  soon  as  lie  heard  of  his  illness.  At  Gar 
rison's  request  he  went  to  Buffalo  to  report  for  the 
Liberator  the  proceedings  of  the  national  convention 
of  the  Liberty  party,  in  session  in  that  city  October 
20th  and  21st,  1847.  He  brought  back  the  news 
that  John  P.  Hale,  of  New  Hampshire,  had  been 
nominated  for  President  of  the  United  States,  and 
then  accompanied  Garrison  home.  Garrison  was 
confined  to  his  bed  for  over  a  month,  and  his  disease 
several  times  threatened  to  terminate  fatally.  After 
his  return,  Garrison  suffered  several  relapses,  and 
was  unable  to  take  any  part  in  the  work  of  the 
Liberator  until  the  beginning  of  1848.  The  paper 
was  burdened  with  a  greater  deficit  than  ever, 
caused  by  an  injudicious  reduction  in  the  price. 

Thus  the  year  ended  gloomily  for  Garrison.  The 
state  of  his  private  affairs  was  apparently  desperate, 
and  the  cause  of  abolition  seemed  to  many  to  be 
retrograding.  Yet,  sustained  only  by  his  own 
faith,  with  the  support  of  a  few  friends,  he  main 
tained  almost  unabated  cheerfulness,  and  absolutely 
undiminished  courage  and  confidence.  With  the 
unshaken  serenity  of  the  convinced  believer,  he 
looked  forward  to  the  time  when  the  slave  power 
should  bring  about  its  own  destruction.  Garrison 
saw,  as  did  a  few  others  of  his  day,  notably  Gid- 
dings  and  Beuton,  that  by  the  annexation  of  Texas 
the  dam  against  an ti- slavery  sentiment  was  only 
built  higher  for  a  time,  and  could  perceive  the  slow 
rise  of  the  sluggish  waters,  one  day  to  be  loosed  in 
a  torrent  of  irresistible  fierceness  and  power. 


CHAPTEE  XII 

THE   PERIOD   OF   COMPROMISE 

THE  faith  which  convinced  Garrison  that  the  an 
nexation  of  Texas,  though  ostensibly  a  victory  for 
the  slave  power,  was  yet  driving  slavery  nearer  de 
struction,  by  bringing  the  free  North  into  alignment 
against  the  extension  of  the  system,  also  assured 
him  that  the  war  with  Mexico  was  a  stride  toward 
the  same  goal.  Many  facts  encouraged  him.  As 
the  war  advanced  to  its  inevitable  end,  he  thought 
he  saw  a  reaction  set  in.  The  paralysis  of  the 
Northern  conscience,  the  dumbing  of  the  Northern 
voice,  were  coining  to  an  end.  The  deadness  of  the 
border  states,  Virginia  and  Kentucky,  was  somewhat 
stirred  for  a  moment ;  Delaware  was  on  the  side  of 
the  free  states  in  opposing  the  extension  of  slavery. 
The  reluctance  to  return  fugitive  slaves  was  grow 
ing  ;  insomuch  that  in  1849  Garrison  affirmed,  with 
his  usual  hopefulness,  that  probably  no  surrender 
of  a  slave,  either  by  or  against  law,  would  again  be 
permitted  on  the  soil  of  New  England,  to  say  noth 
ing  of  the  other  free  states. 

The  cycle  of  change  through  which  Northern 
feeling  toward  slavery  moved  round  from  indiffer 
ence,  through  distaste,  dislike,  and  hostility,  to  ab 
horrence  took  the  practical  form  of  a  political 
movement  under  the  Constitution,  to  confine 
slavery  within  its  existing  limits.  The  leaders  of 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPEOMISE        273 

this  movement,  from  Leicester  King  to  Abraham 
Lincoln,  promised  the  South  its  due  as  a  party  to 
the  contract  of  union,  pledged  themselves  to  keep 
hands  off  slavery  where  it  was  by  state  law  estab 
lished,  but  would  have  invoked  the  flaming  sword 
to  protect  from  the  sin  every  foot  of  American  soil 
not  yet  cursed  by  it.  Garrison's  views,  as  he 
watched  the  restlessness  of  the  Korth  between  1848 
and  1850,  suffered  no  change.  As  for  the  Wilmot 
Proviso,  which  forbade  the  institution  of  slavery  to 
be  planted  in  any  of  the  territory  acquired  from 
Mexico  by  the  war,  he  looked  on  it  with  interest  as 
a  hopeful  symptom  and  gave  it  his  support ;  but  he 
was  on  the  whole  indifferent  to  its  passage,  "  feeling 
that  the  attempt  to  restrict  slavery  by  laws  ...  is 
precisely  equivalent  to  damming  up  the  Mississippi 
with  bulrushes."  He  had  exactly  the  same  judg 
ment  of  the  Free-Soil  party,  which  swallowed  the 
perishing  Liberty  party  in  this  year  (1848),  Hale 
withdrawing  in  favor  of  Martin  Van  Bureu,  the 
Free-Soil  nominee.  This  organization  differed  from 
its  predecessor  in  two  respects.  First,  the  Free- 
Soil  party  consisted  in  the  main  of  those  who  had 
left  one  or  the  other  of  the  old  parties,  and  indi 
cated  a  growing  opposition  to  slavery,  while  the 
Liberty  party  was  composed  of  Abolitionists,  and 
in  Garrison's  view  represented  a  degeneracy  in  true 
anti-slavery  feeling.  Secondly,  the  platform  of  the 
Free-Soil  party  abandoned  the  position  of  some  of 
the  earlier  leaders  that  the  Constitution  was  op 
posed  to  slavery,  and  pledged  itself  to  abolition 
only  where  it  was  constitutionally  possible.  Garri* 


274          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAERISON 

son  welcomed  the  creation  of  the  uew  party,  and 
felt  toward  its  members  none  of  the  bitterness  with 
which  he  had  condemned  the  Liberty  party.  Yet, 
of  course,  its  platform  was  regarded  by  him  as  mor 
ally  defective.  The  " disunion  ground"  of  the 
Abolitionists  seemed  to  him  "invulnerable,"  and 
he  believed  that  at  length  all  Northern  parties  must 
come  to  it.  At  the  same  time  he  felt  great  concern 
lest  faithful  Abolitionists  should  be  enticed  into 
voting  with  the  Free-Soil  party  and  for  Martin 
Van  Buren  of  all  men  ;  he  therefore  strove  to  keep 
before  their  eyes  the  "  true  issue,"  and  enforced 
upon  them  their  duty  to  protest  by  withdrawal 
against  the  unclean  bargain  of  the  Constitution. 

The  years  of  this  rising  tide  of  Free-Soil  senti 
ment  were  years  in  which  Garrison's  activity  was 
much  impeded  by  illness.  On  account  of  the  recur 
rence  of  the  fever  by  which  he  had  been  attacked  on 
his  western  journey,  he  went  in  July,  1848,  lo 
a  water-cure  at  Northampton,  Mass.,  where  his 
brother-in-law  had  lived  as  a  member  of  the  com 
munity  earlier  visited  by  Garrison  and  no  longer 
in  existence,  and  where  he  still  made  his  residence. 
The  water-cure  was  owned  and  managed  by  a 
"Dr."  Buggies,  a  colored  man  of  force  and  capac 
ity,  who  had  long  before  invited  Garrison  to  come 
to  Northampton  for  treatment.  Garrison,  who  tried 
many  medical  experiments,  had  a  fancy  for  hydro 
pathy,  but  had  never  before  given  himself  up  to  the 
severe  regimen  of  a  water-cure.  The  country  bored 
him.  He  missed  liveliness  and  bustle,  and  the 
sense  of  being  busy  for  the  good  of  mankind.  He 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        275 

found  the  men  at  the  cure  companionable,  but  the 
women  "remarkably  silent,  and  most  of  them  not 
very  interesting"  ;  and  on  the  whole  he  endured 
the  irksome  sanitarium  life  with  little  patience. 

In  the  circle  of  his  own  family  he  met  this  year 
anew  the  mysteries  of  birth  and  death.  On  April 
18,  1848,  he  lost  his  little  daughter  Elizabeth,  the 
first  of  his  children  of  whom  he  was  bereft ;  and  on 
October  28th,  he  was  rejoiced  by  the  birth  of  his 
son,  Francis  Jackson,  the  younger  of  the  two  biog 
raphers.  Bereavement  in  itself  Garrison  bore  with 
calm  fortitude.  Death  to  him  was  not  fearful,  but 
as  natural  and  inevitable  as  life,  and  like  life  to  be 
gravely  accepted.  But  in  1849  the  death  of  another 
of  his  children  occurred  under  circumstances  so 
shocking  and  painful  as  to  leave  a  wound  forever  in 
the  hearts  of  Garrison  and  his  wife.  This  son, 
named  after  Professor  Charles  Follen,  the  story 
of  whose  bold  and  useful  life  and  tragic  death  has 
been  narrated  in  previous  pages,  was  a  child  of 
seven.  In  a  letter  of  tender  pathos  Garrison  tells 
of  his  dead  sou's  physical  beauty  and  energy,  his 
high  promise,  and  his  rarely  affectionate  nature. 
He  had  caught  cold  while  the  Garrisons  were  mov 
ing  during  the  inclement  month  of  March  from  their 
house  on  Pine  Street  to  No.  65  Suffolk  Street,  now 
Shawrnut  Avenue.  The  cold  developed  into  brain 
fever  •  the  parents,  not  realizing  the  dangerous  na 
ture  of  the  disease,  tried  to  overcome  it  with  domes 
tic  treatment ;  and  the  child  was  fatally  scalded  in 
a  defective  steam  bath.  Such  an  accident  added  to 
the  sorrow  of  the  father  and  mother  the  unavoid- 


276          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARKLSON 

able  feeling   that  they  were  responsible  for  their 
boy's  death. 

Upon  the  brief  period  of  unrest,  promising  a  wider 
political  acceptance  of  Free-Soil  ideas,  followed  the 
Compromise  of  1850.  The  Compromise  was,  of 
course,  a  hollow  bargain  for  the  North,  which  re 
ceived  nothing  but  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  while  slavery  itself  was 
still  maintained  there.  The  admission  of  California 
as  a  free  state  was  something  beyond  the  control  of 
parties,  and  could  not  properly  be  reckoned  as  an 
element  in  the  Compromise.  The  South,  on  the 
other  hand,  got  the  refusal  to  enact  the  Wilmot 
Proviso,  the  indemnity  to  Texas  for  relinquishing 
her  claims  in  New  Mexico,  and  above  all  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Law.  Here,  as  Garrison  insisted,  was 
the  real  point  of  the  Compromise.  By  this  law,  the 
North,  with  sad  conscientiousness,  pledged  all  its 
force  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  compact  to  protect 
Southern  economic  institutions.  It  was  the  logical 
result  of  that  compact,  of  the  attempt  to  weld  two  in 
compatible  civilizations — if  one  of  them  ever  was  or 
yet  is  a  civilization  in  the  usually  accepted  sense — to 
join  together  by  formalities  what  God  by  the  nature 
of  things  had  forever  put  asunder.  That  the  older 
school  of  Unionist  politicians,  and  especially  Web 
ster,  should  support  the  Compromise,  was  but  nat 
ural,  in  spite  of  occasional  utterances  in  favor  of  the 
Wilmot  Proviso,  or  against  further  yielding  to  tin- 
South.  The  whole  meaning  of  their  political  lif«« 
had  been  nothing  less  than  the  creation  of  the 
Union.  They  had  warmed  in  the  North  a  flame 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        277 

of  patriotic  devotion  to  the  country  transcending 
loyalty  to  the  state ;  they  had  given  all  their 
strength  to  opposing  sectionalism  and  encouraging 
nationalism,  and  they  would  have  gone  counter  to 
the  whole  tenor  of  their  careers  had  they  imperiled 
that  love  of  the  Union  now  so  fair  and  strong,  but 
which  they  had  known  to  be  so  frail  in  its  earlier 
years.  To  Garrison,  of  course,  as  to  Whittier, 
Lowell,  and  Emerson,  Webster's  speech  of  the  7th 
of  March  was  not  only  "  indescribably  base  and 
wicked,"  but  was  an  abandonment  of  an  earlier 
and  a  purer  faith.  The  connection  of  Whittier's 
poem  "Ichabod"  with  the  politics  of  the  time  is 
familiar ;  but  some  readers  will  remember  that 
Longfellow's  "Ode  to  the  Union"  was  also  pub 
lished  at  this  time.  Garrison  contrasted  with  the 
poet's  idea  of  the  Union,— 

"Thou  too,  sail  on,  O  Ship  of  State  !  "— 
his  own  conception  of  it  as  a 

11  '  perfidious  bark 
Built  i'  th'  eclipse,  and  rigged  with  curses  dark,' 

rotting  through  all  her  timbers,  leaking  from  stem 
to  stern,  laboring  heavily  on  a  storm- tossed  sea, 
surrounded  by  clouds  of  disastrous  portent,  navi 
gated  by  those  whose  object  is  a  piratical  one 
(namely  the  extension  and  perpetuity  of  slavery) 
and  destined  to  go  down  i  full  many  a  fathom 
deep'  to  the  joy  and  exultation  of  all  who  are 
yearning  for  the  deliverance  of  a  groaning  world."  l 
1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  280, 


278          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARKISON 

Longfellow's  words  expressed  something  higher 
than  mere  material  satisfaction  with  the  Compro 
mise  j  but  to  the  American  public  at  large,  the 
Compromise  was  welcome  because  it  seemed  to 
bring  external  peace.  The  Union  was  confirmed, 
the  sections  were  harmonious,  the  country  was 
prospering  as  never  before.  Any  action  tending 
to  break  the  calm  was  sure  to  be  unfavorably  re 
ceived.  Indeed,  there  was  much  to  convince  the 
observer  that  the  reaction  against  slavery  had 
spent  its  force;  for  example,  the  new  "  black" 
laws  passed  between  1849  and  1853  in  the  free 
states  of  Indiana,  Iowa,  Illinois,  and  Oregon,  by 
which  free  blacks  were  forbidden  under  severe 
penalties  to  enter  these  states  with  the  intention  of 
residing,  and  were  refused  the  equal  protection  of 
the  law  and  subjected  to  vexations,  sometimes 
petty,  sometimes  grave. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  calling  of  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  early 
in  May,  1850,  was  the  signal  for  mob  violence. 
James  Gordon  Bennett  asked  in  the  New  York  Her 
ald,  "What  business  have  all  the  religious  lunatics 
in  the  free  states  to  gather  in  this  commercial  cily 
for  purposes  which,  if  carried  into  effect,  would  ruin 
and  destroy  its  prosperity?"  and  urged  the  "men 
of  sense"  not  to  "allow  meetings  to  be  held  in  the 
city  which  are  calculated  to  make  our  country  the 
arena  of  blood  and  murder,  and  render  our  city  an 
object  of  horror  to  the  whole  South."  The  Herald 
urged  that  "when  free  discussion  does  not  promote 
the  public  good,  it  has  no  more  right  to  exist  than 


THE  PEEIOD  OF  COMPEOMISE        279 

a  bad  government  that  is  dangerous  and  oppressive 
to  the  common  weal.  It  should  be  overthrown." 
11  Never,'7  says  the  same  paper,  "was  there  more 
malevolence  and  unblushing  wickedness  avowed 
than  by  this  same  Garrison.  ...  In  Boston,  a 
few  months  ago,  a  convention  was  held,  the  object 
of  which  was  the  overthrow  of  Sunday  worship. 
Thus  it  appears  that  nothing  divine  or  secular  is 
respected  by  these  fanatics."  In  its  list  of  the 
speakers,  the  Herald  repeated  the  old  myth  that 
Garrison  was  a  mulatto,  and  strove  to  excite  race 
prejudice  directly  and  personally  against  him  and 
others.  The  language  of  the  New  York  Globe  was 
even  bolder  :  "If  this  Douglass  [Frederick  Doug 
lass]  shall  reproclairn  his  Syracuse  treason  here, 
and  any  man  shall  arrest  his  diabolical  career,  and 
not  injure  him,  thousands  will  exclaim,  in  language 
of  patriotic  love  for  the  Constitution  and  the  rights 
of  the  South,  'Did  he  not  strike  the  villain  dead  V  • ' 
Garrison  was  bold  and  serene,  but  quite  aware  of 
his  danger.  He  wrote  to  his  wife,  his  confidence  in 
her  strength  and  courage  causing  him  perhaps  to 
speak  too  freely.  "In  the  course  of  another  hour 
I  shall  be  on  my  way  to  our  meeting,  .  .  . 
1  bound  in  the  spirit '  as  Paul  said  of  old,  '  not 
knowing  the  things  that  shall  befall  me  there,' 
saving  that  '  bonds  and  afflictions  abide  with  me  in 
every  city,'  though  'none  of  these  things  move  me, 
neither  count  I  my  life  dear  unto  me '  in  compari 
son  with  the  sacred  cause  to  which  I  have  been  so 
long  consecrated.  That  our  meeting  will  be  a 
stormy  one,  I  have  little  doubt — perhaps  brutal  and 


280          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABEISON 

riotous  iii  the  extreme  ; — for  Bennett,  in  each  num  - 
ber  of  his  infamous  Herald,  for  a  week,  has  bee  i 
publishing  the  most  atrocious  articles  respecting  us, 
avowedly  to  have  us  put  down  by  mobocratic  vie-; 
lence  ;  and  it  will  be  strange  indeed  if,  with  his  al- ' 
most  omnipotent  influence  over  all  the  mobocratic 
elements  in  this  city,  we  are  permitted  to  meet  with 
out  imminent  personal  peril.  Bennett  has  aimed  to 
hold  me  up  as  a  special  object  of  vengeance  ;  an<l 
thus  I  am  doomed  to  go,  under  circumstances  cf 
peculiar  trial  and  danger.  It  is  evident  that  as 
long  as  our  meetings  are  held,  he  is  determined  tj 
set  the  mob  upon  us  ;  with  what  temporary  success 
will  soon  appear.  As  to  the  final  result  of  all  tint, 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  It  is  the  prerogative  of  the 
God  whom  we  serve  to  cause  the  wrath  of  man  to 
praise  Him,  and  the  remainder  of  wrath  to  restrain. 

"Here  I  must  pause.  "We  are  all  in  the  hands 
of  a  good  Father,  for  time  and  eternity."1  And 
this  man  was  an  " infidel"  ! 

The  meeting  was  held  on  the  morning  of  May  7, 
1850,  in  the  "  Tabernacle,"  a  Congregational  place 
of  worship,  situated  on  the  northwest  corner  of 
Broadway  and  Anthony  (now  "Worth)  Street,  the 
auditorium  of  which  was  a  large  square  hall 
with  a  floor  sloping  down  to  the  platform.  Tiers 
of  seats  from  behind  the  platform  were  carried 
around  the  sides  to  join  the  gallery.  The  leader 
ship  of  the  disorderly  crowd  gathered  to  break  up 
the  meeting  was  assumed  by  a  certain  Isaiah 
Rynders,  a  bully-rook  and  meeting-breaker  of  wide 
*Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  285 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        281 

experience,  who  had  beeu  a  boatman  on  the  Hudson 
and  a  gambler  in  the  Southwest,  a  man  accustomed 
to  violence,  and  bold  and  self-assertive  in  the  midst 
of  physical  danger,  a  Tammany  "district  boss," 
and  captain  of  a  political  rowdy  organization,  the 
"Empire  Club."  The  burly  fellow,  of  the  sort  we 
now  understand  better  than  we  used  to,  had  posted 
himself  at  one  side  of  the  organ-loft  behind  the 
platform,  where  he  could  command  the  battle-field 
with  the  sweep  of  his  eye.  His  followers  were  about 
him,  ready  to  surge  down  on  the  platform  when  the 
time  should  come. 

Garrison  dressed  himself  with  scrupulous  care. 
In  order  to  avoid  the  least  appearance  of  singularity, 
he  even  changed  the  turn-down  collar  he  had  been 
in  the  habit  of  wearing  through  all  the  moods  of 
fashion,  for  a  stand-up  collar,  such  as  was  customary 
at  the  time.  He  opened  the  meeting  with  reading 
from  the  Scriptures,  and  began  his  address  without 
interruption.  His  topic  was  the  inevitable  one,  the 
inconsistency  between  the  profession  and  the  prac 
tice  of  the  Christian  churches  of  the  country.  He 
spoke  as  usual  with  force  and  even  with  violence, 
but  with  dignity.  Intending  to  take  up  for  con 
sideration  each  great  religious  denomination,  he 
began  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  Captain 
Rynders  interrupted  him  to  ask  whether  there  were 
no  other  churches  beside  the  Catholic  the  members 
<>f  which  held  slaves.  Garrison  answered  his  ques 
tion  by  proceeding  in  his  review  of  the  denomina 
tions,  and  concluded  with  the  intentionally  startling 
declaration,  "A  belief  in  Jesus  is  no  evidence  of 


282          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEE1SON 

goodness."  After  some  little  disturbance,  he  as 
serted  that  if  slaves  worshiped  Jesus,  they  did  not 
worship  a  * '  slaveholding  and  a  slave-breeding 
Jesus"  ; — that  now  the  old  Pharisees  were  dead, 
Jesus  had  become  respectable,  and  sat  in  the  Pres  - 
ident's  chair.  "Zachary  Taylor  sits  there,  and  h3 
believes  in  Jesus.  He  believes  in  war,  and  tli3 
Jesus  that  'gave  the  Mexicans  hell  ! '  " 

When  Garrison  referred  to  President  Taylor, 
Eynders,  followed  by  a  yelling  crowd,  rushed  down 
on  the  platform,  'with  menacing  gestures,  and 
bellowed  :  "I  will  not  allow  you  to  insult  th 3 
President  of  the  United  States.  You  shan't  do  it." 

The  behavior  of  Garrison  and  his  associates  on 
the  platform  was  cool  and  composed.  Garrison 
told  Eynders  that  he  had  not  spoken  disrespectfully 
of  President  Taylor  ;  that  he  had  only  quoted  sonic 
of  the  President's  own  recent  words.  In  quiet  tones 
he  added  that  Eynders  ought  not  to  interrupt,— 
that  he  might  speak  himself  if  he  would,  and  that 
Garrison  would  keep  order.  The  confusion  con 
tinued.  A  young  Malchus,  the  son  of  federal 
Judge  Kane  of  Philadelphia,  rushed  to  protect  his 
beloved  townsman,  the  Unitarian  minister,  Eev.  Dr. 
William  H.  Furness.  "  They  shall  not  touch  a  hair 
of  your  head,"  he  uttered  in  a  tone  suffused  with 
wrath,  and  shook  his  fist  in  Eynders' s  face.  "  If  hi- 
touches  Mr.  Garrison,  I'll  kill  him  !  " 

The  floor  was  formally  offered  to  Eynders,  who 
was  invited  to  a  seat  on  the  platform.     This  he  de 
clined ;   but  having  some  sense  of  fair  play,  stood 
to  one  side  with  folded  arms,  glooming,  until  Gar 


-f 

THE  PEKIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        283 

risen  had  finished  his  speech  and  had  offered  his 
resolutions  condemnatory  of  current  religion. 
When  Garrison  resumed  his  place,  the  floor  was 
again  offered  to  Kynders,  who  preferred  to  have  his 
spokesman  follow  Dr.  Furuess.  This  clergyman, 
famous  for  his  beautiful  elocution,  made  a  winning 
and  powerful  plea  for  freedom  of  speech,  which, 
though  it  provoked  Kynders  to  interruption,  at  last 
drew  applause  even  from  him.  The  speech  saved 
the  meeting  from  destruction.  Captain  Kynders' s 
speaker  was  then  put  forward.  He  was  recognized 
by  Garrison  as  a  former  pressman  on  the  Liberator, 
and  is  described  in  the  biography  by  Garrison's 
sons  as  a  "Professor  Grant,  a  seedy-looking  per 
sonage,  having  one  hand  tied  round  with  a  dirty 
cotton  cloth.'7  His  speech,  on  the  thesis  that 
negroes  are  not  men  but  a  kind  of  monkeys,  pro 
voked  the  jeers  of  the  mercurial  crowd  of  Kynders' s 
followers,  whom  Garrison  tried  to  keep  in  order. 
When  u  Professor  '  \  Grant  had  finished,  Frederick 
Douglass  came  forward,  and  asked  the  obvious 
question,  ' i  Am  I  a  man  ?  "  As  the  audience  roared 
its  answer,  Kynders  sneered,  "You  are  not  a  black 
man  ;  you  are  only  half  a  nigger." 

"Then,"  responded  Douglass,  with  the  blandest 
of  smiles  and  bows,  ''I  am  your  half-brother." 
When  in  the  course  of  his  address,  Douglass  criti 
cized  Horace  Greeley,  Kynders,  as  Greeley's  polit 
ical  opponent,  concurred.  "I  am  happy,"  said 
Douglass,  "to  have  the  assent  of  my  half-brother 
here;"  and  throughout  his  speech,  he  continued 
with  the  genial  impertinence  of  the  practiced 


284         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEEISON 

speaker,  who  knows  how  to  divert  an  audience  at 
the  expense  of  an  adversary,  without  giving  the. 
adversary  any  handle  to  take  hold  of.  Finally  he 
said,  * '  We  were  born  here,  we  are  not  dying  out, 
and  we  mean  to  stay  here.  We  made  the  clothen 
you  have  on,  the  sugar  you  put  into  your  tea.  Wo 
would  do  more  for  you  if  allowed." 

"  Yes,  you  would  cut  our  throats  for  us!"  in 
allusion  to  an  injudicious  assertion  of  George 
Thompson,  that  slaves  would  be  justified  in  cutting 
their  masters'  throats,  which  was  assumed  to  be  the 
accepted  doctrine  of  Abolitionists. 

"  No,  but  we  would  cut  your  hair  for  you." 

Douglass's  speech  led  to  the  dramatic  culmina 
tion  of  the  meeting.  He  called  for  the  Eev.  S.  S 
Ward,  the  editor  of  the  Impartial  Citizen.  From  the 
back  of  the  platform  came  forward  "a  large  man. 
so  black  that  as  Wendell  Phillips  said,  when  he 
shut  his  eyes  you  could  not  see  him." 

"Well,"  said  Eynders,  "this  is  the  original 
nigger!" 

"I  have  often  heard  of  the  magnanimity  of 
Captain  Eynders,"  replied  Ward,  "but  the  half 
has  never  been  told  me."  His  speech  was  in  so 
noble  a  strain  that  the  very  mob  applauded  him, 
and  the  meeting  for  the  day  ended  with  a  triumph 
not  only  for  the  Anti-Slavery  Society,  but  for  the 
negro  race,  "two  members  of  which,"  says  Dr. 
Furness,  "whose  claims  to  be  human  had  been 
denied,  had  by  mere  force  of  intellect  overwhelmed 
their  maligners  with  confusion." 

In  the  evening  the  speeches  were  broken  up  by 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        285 

noises ;  and  on  the  following  day,  Rynders  and  his 
men,  having  learned  that  intellectual  weapons  cut 
their  fingers,  confined  themselves  to  physical  dis 
turbances.  The  eccentric  Burleigh  was  derided. 
Rynders  put  his  arm  round  Burleigh' s  neck  and 
affectionately  stroked  his  long  sandy  beard.  Phil 
lips  was  made  the  target  for  filthy  personal  abuse, 
and  at  last  the  rabble  put  forward  a  representative 
to  propose  resolutions  against  abolition.  Rynders 
declared  them  carried  by  acclamation.  The  police 
did  nothing  to  arrest  the  disturbance.  Finally,  un 
der  protest,  Garrison  was  obliged  to  declare  the 
meeting  closed,  the  proprietors  of  the  building  re 
fusing  to  allow  it  to  be  longer  used  by  the  society. 
Their  ground  was  fear  of  damage,  and  especially 
the  imminent  danger  to  the  New  York  Society  Li 
brary,  familiarly  known  as  the  "City,"  or  "  Public" 
Library,  where  a  little  further  up  Broadway  were 
held  the  meetings  of  the  evening  of  May  7th,  and  of 
the  following  morning. 

That  the  triumph  of  violence  was  rather  over 
freedom  of  speech  than  over  Abolitionism  was  gen 
erally  recognized  throughout  the  North.  Efforts 
were  made  to  excite  a  mob  in  Boston,  but  though 
the  meeting  was  harassed  and  disturbed,  it  was  not 
broken  up.  Indeed,  of  those  who  took  part  in  the 
disturbances  both  in  New  York  and  in  Boston,  it 
may  be  said,  as  of  most  anti-abolition  mobs,  that 
reprehensibly  as  they  behaved,  they  were  not  blood 
thirsty  or  even  greatly  bent  on  violence.  They 
were  mainly  composed  of  ignorant  and  foolish  rather 
than  ill-disposed  persons,  actuated  by  a  pleasure  in 


286         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABEISON 

mischief  and  a  desire  for  vulgar  sport,  not  con  • 
monly  by  dark  designs  and  a  settled  hatred  of 
Abolitionism.  Bad  as  they  were,  their  course  bears 
testimony  to  the  general  mildness  of  the  Northern 
temper. 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  equal  violence 
on  the  other  side  would  have  been  manifested  i  n 
opposition  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  That  law 
abrogated  the  fundamental  guarantees  of  person; il 
liberty  so  deeply  written  in  Anglo-American  juris 
prudence.  Annulling  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus; 
giving  the  person  whose  status  was  in  question  i.o 
right  to  testify  ;  in  effect  laying  on  him  the  burden 
of  proof;  awarding  the  officers  who  remanded  the 
unfortunate  to  slavery  twice  the  fees  allowed  m 
case  the  decision  went  in  his  favor  :  it  was  at  once  a 
testimony  to  the  weakness  of  the  system  which  it 
was  designed  to  support,  and  to  the  enormous  force 
of  the  pro-slavery  bargain  in  controlling  the  North. 
A  cry  of  horror  went  up  from  hundreds  of  anti- 
slavery  meetings,  and  even  the  less  extreme  Aboli 
tionists  and  many  who  were  not  Abolitionists  defied 
the  law,  and  proclaimed  their  intention  of  refusing 
to  yield  obedience  to  it.  Pour  of  the  incidents  con 
nected  with  the  enforcement  of  the  law, — the  slay 
ing  of  Gorsuch  at  Christiana,  Pa.,  by  the  negroes 
he  claimed,  the  rescue  of  Jerry  McHenry  at  Syra 
cuse,  the  rescue  of  Shadrach  at  Boston  by  a  mob 
of  his  own  race,  and  the  remanding  to  slavery  from 
Boston  of  Thomas  Simms, — all  struck  the  public 
attention.  Far  more  justly  may  the  student  reflect 
upon  the  many  quiet  and  unopposed,  apparently 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        287 

unnoticed,  instances  of  enforcement  of  the  law,  often 
on  flimsy  evidence  and  under  cruel  circumstances. 
Was  not  Judge  Taney  merely  recognizing  facts 
when  he  implied  that  the  traditional  American  view 
of  the  negro  was  that  he  had  no  rights  which  a 
white  man  is  bound  to  respect?  In  spite  of  the 
shocking  nature  of  the  law,  the  majority  in  the 
Il^orth  remained  silent.  The  temper  of  the  day  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  in  1851  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  could  obtain  no  hall  in  New  York, 
and  was  driven  to  Syracuse  for  its  annual  meeting. 

In  1851  the  infirm  condition  of  Garrison's  health 
drove  him  often  from  his  desk.  Yet  despite  grounds 
for  discouragement  and  his  own  physical  weakness, 
the  year,  though  marked  by  little  obvious  progress 
for  the  cause,  was  one  of  much  delight  for  him. 
George  Thompson  made  a  visit  of  eight  months  to 
the  United  States,  and  Garrison  had  great  pleasure 
in  his  company.  The  twentieth  anniversary  of  the 
establishment  of  the  Liberator  took  place  in  this 
year,  and  was  celebrated  in  a  manner  to  touch  Gar 
rison's  heart  and  to  encourage  him  for  the  future. 

Some  of  the  objects  of  his  activity  during  this 
period  seem  obscure  and  unworthy.  He  strove 
strenuously  but  futilely  to  induce  two  foreigners 
visiting  the  United  States,  each  on  a  special  mis 
sion,  to  declare  themselves  against  slavery.  In  1849 
Father  Theobald  Mat-hew,  the  Irish  temperance  ad 
vocate,  visited  America.  Father  Mathew  had  al 
ready  given  evidence  of  anti-slavery  sentiments, 
having  with  O'Conuell  and  seventy  thousand  other 
Irishmen  signed  an  address  to  their  countrymen  in 


288         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

the  United  States,  urging  them  to  oppose  slavery. 
But  the  Irish  at  that  time  in  this  country  were  in 
the  main  unskilled  day-laborers,  competing  directly 
with  negroes,  and  like  the  " poor  whites"  in  the 
South,  jealous  of  their  own  social  and  racial  posi 
tion  above  the  slaves.  Accordingly,  when  Father 
Mathew  arrived  in  America,  he  regarded  an  expres 
sion  of  opinion  on  the  subject  of  slavery  as  likely  to 
interfere  with  the  chief  object  of  his  visit.  He  was 
obviously  embarrassed  by  his  signature  to  the  ad 
dress,  and  though  he  could  not  deny  it,  would  not 
expressly  avow  it.  The  course  followed  by  Father 
Mathew  provoked  a  lively  newspaper  discussion  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  and  to  a  debate  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  upon  a  resolution  to  in 
vite  him  to  a  seat  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  cham 
ber.  Garrison  wrote  five  letters  to  Father  Mathew, 
the  "false  priest"  as  the  Garrisons  call  him,1  af 
firming  that  his  conduct  would  be  likely  to  encour 
age  violence  against  the  Abolitionists,  and  holding 
him  responsible  "for  leading  his  countrymen  as 
tray,  and  for  adding  to  the  anguish  and  despair  of 
the  slave." 

In  1852  Garrison  made  the  same  attempt  with 
Louis  Kossuth,  the  brilliant  Hungarian  who  visited 
America  to  obtain,  if  possible,  diplomatic  recogni 
tion  or  some  governmental  action  in  favor  of  his 
people,  or,  at  least,  money  for  their  cause.  The  ro 
mantic  history  of  Hungary  and  Kossuth7 s  marvel 
ous  eloquence  would  have  attracted  the  attention  of 
Americans  at  any  time,  but  when  there  was  no  po- 
1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  259. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        289 

litical  question  to  engross  their  minds,  he  created 
an  excitement  approaching  ecstasy.  Garrison  re 
garded  the  idea  of  visiting  slave-cursed  America  in 
order  to  free  Hungary  from  mere  political  domi 
nance  as  a  shocking  anomaly,  and  called  upon  Kos- 
suth  to  declare  his  sentiments  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  as  a  possible  and  worthy  contribution  to  the 
cause  of  liberty,  one  the  world  over.  With  diplo 
matic  skill,  the  Hungarian,  like  the  Irishman,  re 
fused  to  commit  himself  on  the  subject,  as  ulterior 
to  his  purpose  and  function  ;  Garrison  in  vain  called 
on  him  to  be  "  faithful  and  fearless,'7  and  censured 
him  bitterly. 

But  the  really  important  event  of  the  year  1852 
was  the  appearance  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  which 
was  published  in  March.  Within  a  year,  three 
hundred  thousand  copies  were  sold  in  America, 
and  a  million  and  a  half  in  Europe.  In  spite  of 
crudity,  it  rapt  and  mastered  its  readers  by  the 
force  of  genius  displayed  in  it,  and  inculcated  its 
doctrine  with  an  effectiveness  such  as  has  been 
possessed  by  no  other  work  of  the  imagination  with 
a  purpose  except  the  one  with  which  it  is  inevitably 
compared,  namely,  Rousseau's  Nouvelle  Helo'ise. 
Not  intended  as  a  fair  picture  of  average  slavery,  it 
was  a  just  account  of  the  possibilities  of  horror  and 
cruelty  in  the  system,  and  stirred  the  pulse  and 
moved  the  heart  of  the  whole  civilized  world. 
Garrison  testified  to  the  power  of  the  book,  and 
welcomed  its  influence.  He  commented  character 
istically  on  u  Uncle  Tom"  as  an  example  of  Chris 
tian  non-resistance,  wondering  whether  Mrs.  Stowe 


290          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARBISON 

would  set  the  same  standard  for  a  white  man.  No 
immediate  effect  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  upon  aboli 
tion  societies  and  Free- Soil  votes  was  perceived, 
and  hence  the  practical  influence  of  the  book  has 
been  belittled  ;  but  as  a  living  body  of  ideas,  slowly 
working  to  modify  the  sentiments  of  the  future,  its 
power  is  beyond  calculation.  The  most  penetrating 
criticism  thus  far  made  is  that  Uncle  Tom  was  a 
white  man  with  a  black  skin. 

The  latter  part  of  1852  and  the  whole  of  1853 
were  given  up  by  Garrison  to  an  almost  uninter 
rupted  round  of  conventions,  both  of  Abolitionists 
and  of  the  supporters  of  the  multitude  of  other  re 
forms  espoused  by  him.  In  April,  1853,  he  for  the 
first  time  visited  Cincinnati,  the  centre  of  a  settle 
ment  largely  from  New  England,  though  not  mainly 
so,  as  was  that  of  the  Western  Reserve.  This  time 
he  made  the  journey  all  the  way  by  rail.  The  appli 
cation  of  the  electric  telegraph  to  train-despatching 
had  made  possible  the  administration  of  large 
systems  with  through  trains  ;  and  four  railroads,  the 
New  York  Central,  the  Erie,  the  Pennsylvania,  and 
the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  now  provided  east  and  west 
lines  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard  to  the  northern 
states  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  The  north  and 
south  transportation  line  of  the  Mississippi  River 
was  diminished  in  importance,  and  the  rapid  immi 
gration  made  possible  by  the  railroads  created  the 
combined  North  and  Northwest  which  in  time  shut 
in  and  overcame  the  South  in  the  great  struggle  of 
the  sections.  Some  details  of  Garrison's  journey  are 
not  without  interest.  He  reached  the  east  bank  of 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        291 

the  Hudson  late  at  night.  There  were  no  good  ac 
commodations  on  this  bank,  and  he  was  afraid  of 
losing  his  train  out  of  Albany  if  he  stayed  where 
he  was  till  morning  ;  so  he  was  under  the  necessity 
of  crossing  the  river  in  a  small  boat.  He  com 
plained  of  the  inconvenience,  and  of  the  exorbitant 
charge  of  five  York  shillings,  sixty-two  and  a  half 
cents,  which  he  had  to  pay.  He  left  Boston  Friday 
afternoon  and  reached  Cincinnati  Monday  evening. 
The  journey  had  occupied  him  for  more  than  three 
full  days,  including  two  sleepless  nights  ;  if  he  had 
traveled  continuously,  it  would  have  occupied 
about  two  days. 

In  Cincinnati,  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  River,  he 
looked  across  from  the  free  soil  of  Ohio  to  slave- 
ridden  Kentucky,  his  thoughts  on  the  heroic  but 
injudicious  Cassius  M.  Clay,  publishing  his  little 
abolition  paper  from  behind  the  walls  within  which 
he  was  in  a  state  of  perpetual  siege.  Clay  while  a 
student  at  Yale  had  been  converted  by  Garrison, 
and  was  striving  to  reform  his  native  state  from 
within.  He  sent  a  message  to  the  meeting  at 
Cincinnati,  hailing  Garrison  as  "the  first  of  living 
men."  It  is  noteworthy  that  Garrison's  resolutions 
on  this  occasion  emphasize  rather  the  economic 
than  the  moral  evils  of  slavery,  and  prophesy  the 
"New  South." 

Driven  back  to  Boston  by  an  attack  of  pleurisy, 
he  spoke  as  usual  at  the  May  meeting  of  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society  in  New  York, 
where  there  was  no  interruption  or  disturbance. 
He  rejoiced  in  the  successful  opposition  to  the 


292         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISOtf 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  iu  the  appearance  of  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who  followed 
him,  spoke  for  the  first  time  from  an  abolition 
platform,  though  not  quite  as  a  Garrisouian  Aboli 
tionist.  After  a  busy  summer,  Garrison  took  an 
other  western  journey  in  October,  intending  particu 
larly  to  visit  Michigan.  On  the  way,  at  Cleveland, 
he  spoke  at  a  Woman's  Eights  Convention,  where 
the  younger  brother  of  a  clergyman,  of  whom  he 
had  spoken  severely,  committed  the  undignified 
violence  of  pulling  his  nose. 

In  Michigan,  as  in  Ohio  before,  Stephen  S.  Foster, 
and  his  wife,  Abby  Kelley  Foster,  had  been  already 
preparing  the  way  as  evangelists.  They  thought 
the  political  an ti -slavery  party  now  very  weak  and 
the  time  propitious  for  Garrisoiiianisin.  On  the 
whole,  Garrison  found  political  an  ti -slavery  still  in 
the  ascendent.  In  Detroit  he  could  not  get  a  place 
in  which  to  speak,  and  passed  his  hours  of  enforced 
idleness  in  a  visit  to  Windsor,  Canada,  where  were 
many  colored  refugees.  The  only  tangible  result  of 
the  journey  was  the  foundation  of  a  Michigan  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  at  Adrian.  Finally,  Garrison 
rounded  out  this  year,  which  had  been  crowded 
full  of  meetings,  with  a  celebration  of  the  twentieth 
anniversary  of  the  establishment  of  the  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  at  Philadelphia. 

Eestlessly  active  as  were  the  years  from  the  Mex 
ican  War  to  the  passage  of  the  Nebraska  Bill,  they 
were  more  notable  for  the  advance  in  Garrison's 
religious  views  than  for  his  anti-slavery  propaganda. 
When  the  Chardon  Street  Convention  was  held  in 


THE  PEEIOD  OP  COMPROMISE        293 

1840,  Garrison  already  adhered  to  many  heterodox 
opinions ;  yet  he  was  far  from  being  radically  un- 
evangelical.  He  still  believed  in  the  inspiration 
of  the  Bible,  in  the  divinity  of  Jesus,  and  in  the 
related  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  Bnt  with  the 
course  of  time  his  orthodox  theological  views  on 
these  matters  suffered  steady  disintegration.  Even 
his  anti-Sabbatarianism  increased  in  strength,  so 
that  late  in  1847  he  wrote  and  circulated  a  call  for 
a  convention,  not  this  time  to  discuss  the  obligation 
of  observing  Sunday,  but  to  oppose  the  laws  punish 
ing  Sabbath-breaking, — to  shake  off  "the  sabbat 
ical  yoke ' '  which  lay  l  i  so  heavily  on  the  necks  of 
the  American  people."  The  fundamental  ground 
of  the  call  was,  that  to  establish  by  law  any  day  of 
the  week  as  sacred  to  religious  observances,  and  to 
punish  those  who  engaged  in  their  ordinary  voca 
tions  on  that  day,  was  to  interfere  with  liberty  of 
conscience.  The  call  also  declared  that  the  Scrip 
tures  gave  no  warrant  for  compelling  the  observance 
of  any  day  of  the  week  as  the  Sabbath.  The  im 
mediate  object  of  assembling  the  convention  was  to 
oppose  a  society — the  American  and  Foreign  Sabbath 
Union,  which  was  carrying  on  an  aggressive  cam 
paign  in  favor  of  the  sabbatical  observance  of  Sun 
day.  This  society  employed  a  permanent  secretary, 
who  gave  his  whole  time  to  the  cause,  traveling 
thousands  of  miles,  making  addresses  before  all 
kinds  of  public  assemblies,  and  distributing  tracts 
throughout  the  country. 

Against    this    society   Garrison    and   his  fellow 
signers  charged  that  it  was  animated  by  "the  spirit 


294          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

of  religious  bigotry  and  ecclesiastical  tyranny — the 
spirit  which,  banished  the  Baptists  from  Massa 
chusetts,  and  subjected  the  Quakers  to  imprison 
ment  and  death,  in  the  early  history  of  this  country." 
The  call  sums  up  the  grounds  for  assembling  the 
convention  by  expressing  the  belief  that  t  i  the 
efforts  of  this  '  Sabbath  Union  :  ought  to  be  baffled 
by  at  least  a  corresponding  energy  on  the  parts  of 
the  friends  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  .  .  . 
That  the  Sabbath  as  now  recognized  and  enforced 
is  one  of  the  main  pillars  of  Priestcraft  and  Super 
stition,  and  the  stronghold  of  a  merely  ceremonial 
religion  ;  that,  in  the  hands  of  a  sabbatizing  clergy, 
it  is  a  mighty  obstacle  in  the  way  of  all  the  reforms 
of  the  age, — such  as  Anti-Slavery,  Peace,  Temper 
ance,  Purity,  Human  Brotherhood,  etc.,  etc., — and 
rendered  adamantine  in  its  aspect  toward  bleeding 
Humanity,  whose  cause  must  not  be  pleaded  but 
whose  cries  must  be  stifled  on  its  '  sacred '  occur 
rence.  .  .  ."  l 

The  document  gives  some  little  consideration 
to  the  social  and  economic  aspect  of  the  Sabbath 
question, — one  of  the  exceedingly  few  instances  in 
which  Garrison  even  by  the  most  indirect  implica 
tion  refers  to  the  lot  of  the  laboring  man.  Here  as 
usual  he  insists  that  liberation  from  sin  would  des 
troy  want  and  affliction,  and  bring  grinding  toil 
to  an  end.  "  We  have  no  objection  either  to  the 
first  or  the  seventh  day  of  the  week  as  a  day  of  rest 
from  bodily  toil,  both  for  man  and  beast.  On  the 
contrary,  such  rest  is  not  only  desirable  but  iu- 
1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  224. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        295 

dispensable.  Neither  man  nor  beast  can  long 
endure  unmitigated  labor.  But  we  do  not  believe 
that  it  is  in  harmony  with  the  will  of  God,  or  the 
physical  nature  of  man,  that  mankind  should  be 
doomed  to  hard  and  wasting  toil  six  days  out  of 
seven  to  obtain  a  bare  subsistence.  Reduced  to 
such  a  pitiable  condition,  the  rest  of  one  day  in  the 
week  is  indeed  grateful,  and  must  be  regarded  as  a 
blessing  ;  but  it  is  totally  inadequate  wholly  to 
repair  the  physical  injury  or  the  moral  degradation 
consequent  on  such  protracted  labor.  It  is  not  in 
accordance  with  the  law  of  life  that  our  race  should 
be  thus  worked,  and  only  thus  partially  relieved 
from  suffering  and  a  premature  death.  They  need 
more,  and  must  have  more,  instead  of  less  rest ; 
and  it  is  only  for  them  to  be  enlightened  and  re 
claimed — to  put  away  those  things  which  now  cause 
them  to  grind  in  the  prison-house  of  Toil,  namely, 
idolatry,  priestcraft,  sectarism,  slavery,  war,  in 
temperance,  licentiousness,  monopoly,  and  the  like 
— in  short  to  live  in  peace,  obey  the  eternal  law  of 
being,  strive  for  each  other's  welfare,  and  l  glorify 
God  in  their  bodies  and  spirits  which  are  his' — 
and  they  will  secure  the  rest,  not  only  of  one  day  in 
seven,  but  of  a  very  large  portion  of  their  earthly 
existence.  To  them  shall  be  granted  the  mastery 
over  every  day  and  every  hour  of  time,  as  against 
want  and  affliction  ;  for  the  earth  shall  be  filled  with 
abundance  for  all."  l 

The  convention  met  March  23  and  24,  1848.     The 
circular  calling  it  was  signed  altogether  by  Aboli- 
1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  224,  225. 


296          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

tionists,  and  chiefly  by  Abolitionists  of  the  extreme 
wiiig  ;  and  the  most  notable  speakers  were  Garrison 
himself  and  his  close  associates.  The  orthodox 
Boston  Recorder  says  of  the  meeting  :  i  i  The  most 
influential  speaker  .  .  .  was  the  redoubtabh 
Garrison  himself.  At  every  turn  of  the  business, 
his  hand  grasped  the  steering-oar ;  and  let  his 
galley-slaves  row  with  what  intent  they  would,  lu 
guided  all  things  at  his  will."  This  anti-Sabbatl) 
convention  now  caused  him  to  be  named  the  "  Prince 
of  New  England  infidelity." 

Garrison's  repugnance  to  the  idea  of  ceremouia' 
holiness  was  not  limited  to  hallowed  days,  but  ex 
tended  to  a  consecrated  clergy  and  a  sacred  ecclesi 
astical  organization.  He  had  come  to  abhor  a  cler 
ical  order,  and  scorned  the  conception  that  any 
church  can  be  the  one  Church  of  Christ  ;  and  this 
same  year,  1848,  he  proclaimed  his  views  in  ai; 
editorial  in  the  Liberator.  i '  Representing  no  societ y 
or  body  of  people  on  earth,  speaking  only  my  own 
sentiments,  on  my  own  responsibility,  on  the  plat 
form  of  free  expression,  not  of  technical  auti 
slavery,"  he  wrote,  "I  am  free  to  avow  my  opposi 
tion  to  the  clergy,  not  because  in  the  mass,  or  in 
general,  they  are  found  in  league  with  popular 
wickedness,  resisting  every  righteous  reform  by 
every  means  within  their  power,  but  as  an  order, 
claiming  divine  sanction  and  authority.  My  ob 
jections  are  not  to  the  *  abuses'  of  the  order.  It 
has  no  abuses  ;  any  more  than  rum-drinking  or 
slaveholding.  It  is,  in  itself,  an  abuse— or  rather, 
it  is  the  source  of  abuses.  It  is  the  sworn 


THE  PEKIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        297 

foe  of  Progress,  a  mountainous  obstacle  in  the  path 
way  of  Humanity.  It  was  unknown  to  primitive 
Christianity  ;  it  derives  no  authority  from  the 
gospel.  It  is  to  the  Church  what  a  self-constituted 
nobility  is  to  the  state.  Like  the  poison -tree,  it 
must  be  exterminated,  root  and  branch.  For  as 
strong  reasons,  I  seek  the  extirpation  of  every 
church,  which,  by  virtue  of  its  organization,  claims 
to  be  divinely  instituted  the  Church  of  Christ,  or  a 
branch  of  that  Church,  and  therefore  makes  the 
evidence  of  true  religion  to  consist  in  joining  it,  or 
acknowledging  the  validity  of  its  claims.  .  .  . 
The  Church  of  Christ  is  not  mutable  but  permanent, 
and  therefore  not  a  formal  organization.  "No  one 
can  be  voted  into  it,  no  one  expelled  from  it,  by 
human  suffrages." 

His  belief  in  the  plenary  inspiration  of  the  Bible 
had  also  been  gradually  undermined.  The  * i  mem 
orable  conversations,"  in  the  halls  and  lobbies  of 
the  Chardon  Street  Convention,  to  which  Emerson 
refers,  may  have  had  to  do  with  this  change  of 
faith  ;  but  as  early  as  1843,  Edmund  Quincy  noted 
the  alteration  in  Garrison's  views,  rejoicing  for  him 
as  a  man,  but  lamenting  for  the  cause  as  an  Aboli 
tionist.  "It  was  so  convenient  to  be  able  to  reply 
to  those  who  were  calling  him  infidel,  that  he  be 
lieved  as  much  as  anybody,  and  swallowed  the 
whole  Bible  in  a  lump,  from  Genesis  to  Revelation, 
both  included.  They  say  that  in  Connecticut  they 
always  keep  one  member  of  a  pious  family  uncon 
verted  to  do  their  wicked  work  for  them.  I  sup- 

1  Liberator,  Nov.  10,  1848. 


298          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKBISON 

pose  my  policy  is  something  of  the  same  sort."  = 
Garrison's  denial  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  was 
most  conspicuously  expressed   at  a  convention  as 
sembled  at  Hartford,  Conn.,  in  June,  1853,  to  dis 
cuss  the  u  origin,  authority,  and  influence  of  the 
Jewish  and  Christian  Scriptures."     At  the  conveu 
tiou,  the  mere  calling  of  which  was  naturally  re 
garded  as  blasphemous,  a  disorderly  crowd  in  tin 
galleries,  largely  theological  students  from  Trinity 
College,  disturbed  the  proceedings  with  unseemly 
noises  ;  and  when  the  attempt  was  finally  made  to 
restore  order  by  arresting  some  of  the  rioters,  kuiven 
were  drawn,  sword-canes  flourished,  and  it  scemet 
likely  that  blood  would  be  shed.     Garrison  declarec 
that  the  American  clergy  as  a  body  would  "bun 
the  Bible  to-morrow,  if  persecution  should  be  the 
result  of  disobedience." 

In  one  of  his  speeches  at  Hartford,  Garrison 
asserted  that  he  well  knew  the  outcry  of  "Infidel  I 
Infidel!  Infidel!"  which  would  rise  against  him, 
and  well  understood  that  his  presence  would  be  con 
strued  as  another  evidence  of  the  infidel  character 
of  the  ant i -slavery  movement.  "Shall  I,  therefore, 
be  dumb  ?  .  .  .  Why,  sir,  no  freedom  of  speech 
or  inquiry  is  conceded  to  me  in  this  laud.  Am  1 
not  vehemently  told  both  at  the  North  and  tin- 
Sou  th  that  I  have  no  right  to  meddle  with  the 
question  of  slavery  ?  And  my  right  to  speak  on 
any  other  subject,  in  opposition  to  public  opinion, 
is  equally  denied  to  nie."  These  words  show  how 
much  more  Garrison  stood  for  the  only  really  im- 
1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  95. 


THE  PEBIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        299 

portant  freedom,  which  carries  all  others  with  it, 
freedom  of  the  mind  and  of  speech,  than  merely  for 
emancipation,  however  dear  the  latter  was  to  his 
heart. 

His  changing  views  as  to  the  office  and  work  of 
Jesus  may  be  traced  with  some  clearness  from  the 
record  he  has  left,  though  it  is  not  possible  to  tell 
exactly  when  he  gave  up  the  evangelical  view.  In 
January,  1841,  he  could  write,  "  I  glory  in  nothing 
here  below  save  in  Jesus  and  Him  crucified." 
Walking  home  from  Theodore  Parker's  sermon  "On 
the  Transient  and  Permanent  in  Christianity,"  deliv 
ered  in  May,  1841,  he  said  to  his  companion,  John 
son,  "Infidelity,  Oliver,  infidelity!"  In  1842  he 
was  shocked  to  see  the  name  of  Socrates  placed  beside 
that  of  Jesus.  But  by  1845  he  took  very  calmly  Par 
ker's  heresies,  minimizing  the  importance  of  the  su 
pernatural  elements  in  Christianity,  in  comparison 
with  the  moral  ones.  ' i  Surely, ' J  he  says,  l  i  the  obli 
gations  and  duties  of  man  to  his  fellow  man  and  his 
God  are  in  no  degree  affected  by  the  question, 
whether  miracles  were  wrought  in  Judea  or  not, 
with  whatever  interest  that  question  may  be  in 
vested."  The  ordinances  of  Christianity  were  as 
little  respected  by  him  as  the  articles  of  belief.  The 
Baptist  Garrison  had  traveled  a  long  way  when  he 
could  say  to  his  little  daughter,  who  asked  whether 
she  had  been  baptized  :  "  No,  my  darling,  but  you 
have  had  a  good  bath  every  morning,  which  is  a 
great  deal  better." 

Garrison's  course  not  only  offended  the  great  body 
of  believers,  but  pained  and  grieved  many  who 


300          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

sympathized  with  his  efforts  to  destroy  slavery  and 
who  respected  his  personality.  When  some  of  his 
friends,  American  and  English,  displayed  their  un 
easiness,  he  replied  to  them  that  in  so  far  as  they 
were  persuaded  that  their  ideas  rested  on  a  solid 
foundation,  they  courted,  investigation  ;  and  thai 
just  in  so  far  as  their  ideas  rested  on  mere  tradition, 
or  as  they  felt  themselves  insecure  in  their  belief, 
they  feared  it.  His  reply  to  3 Irs.  Stowe,  who  wrote 
to  him  with  excellent  temper  upon  the  subject  of 
his  "  infidelity,"  evinces  the  point  of  view  he 
had  at  last  reached.  After  asserting  that  "  ven 
eration  for  the  Book"  had  done  nothing  for  the 
" cause  of  bleeding  humanity"  he  declared,  "My 
reliance  for  the  deliverance  of  the  oppressed  uui 
versally  is  upon  the  nature  of  man,  the  inherent 
wrongfulness  of  oppression,  the  power  of  truth,  and 
the  omnipotence  of  God."  The  last  phrase  is  note 
worthy.  '*God,"  as  J.  M.  McKiin  said  with 
reference  to  Garrison  to  a  friend,  "is  in  all  his 
thoughts."  However  far  he  wandered  from  ortho 
doxy,  his  whole  life  was  an  act  of  devotion  to  God. 
He  saw  in  the  world  the  governance  of  a  righteous 
spirit,  a  personal  Deity,  in  whose  presence  ho 
walked  habitually,  and  to  whom  he  regarded  his 
every  act  as  related. 

Garrison  evinced  an  enthusiasm  quite  as  Ameri 
can  as  Athenian  for  every  new  thing.  The  phe 
nomena  of  Spiritualism,  which  were  exciting  Amer 
ica  in  the  decade  from  1840  to  1850,  engaged  his  at 
tention.  He  looked  at  evidence  offered  without  prej 
udice,  and  on  being  challenged  for  his  opinion  on 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPEOMISE        301 

the  subject,  expressed  his  conviction,  in  May,  1842, 
that  although  some  cheats  had  been  encountered, 
yet  no  theory  of  imposture  or  delusion  had  ade 
quately  explained  the  manifestations.  He  was 
staggered  by  the  intellectual  inferiority  of  the  com 
munications  given.  He  was,  however,  greatly  af 
fected  by  a  message  of  friendly  import,  purporting 
to  come  from  his  alienated  friend,  N.  P.  Eogers, 
who  had  died  in  1846.  In  course  of  time,  the  re 
ceipt  of  many  such  messages  wrought  in  him  the 
comfortable  conviction  that  Eogers,  reconciled,  had 
become  in  a  sense  his  guardian  and  familiar  spirit. 
Though  convinced  that  words  from  the  departed 
may  come  to  earth,  that  bells  and  tables  and  other 
bodies  are  lifted  by  superhuman  agency,  and  even 
that  spirit  photographs  are  taken,  he  gave  little  at 
tention  to  the  subject.  He  was  aware  that  much 
deceit  attends  ' '  spiritualistic  phenomena, ' '  and  re 
ceived  no  sufficiently  important  message  to  warrant 
him  in  giving  Spiritualism  attention  against  the 
wishes  of  his  wife,  who  disliked  it.  His  belief,  of 
course,  was  another  count  against  him  in  the  indict 
ment  of  heterodoxy. 

He  was  interested  in  phrenology  and  clairvoy 
ance,  and  devoted  to  experiments  in  medicine. 
He  consulted  a  number  of  regular  practitioners, 
(each  had  a  different  opinion  as  to  his  malady), 
as  well  as  hydropathists,  clairvoyants,  and  herb 
doctors,  not  giving  credence,  but  in  order  to  try  all 
things.  "It  may  do  me  good,"  he  says  of  a  new 
treatment ;  "  it  certainly  will  not,  if  I  do  not  try  it." 
Since  one  of  the  clairvoyants  beheld  the  trouble  on 


302          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEEISON 

the  wrong  side,  his  faith  in  them  was  not  strong, 
although,  he  intimates,  they  agreed  as  well  as  tht 
physicians.  Homeopathic  treatment  was  not  vigor 
ous  enough  for  him.  His  greatest  confidence  was  ii 
the  system  of  Samuel  Thomson,  which,  combining 
steam  baths  and  cayenne  pepper,  was  sufficiently 
emphatic  to  suit  his  taste  for  decided  effects  ii 
medical  treatment.  He  was  devoted  to  patent  med 
icines.  "You  remember,"  Edmund  Quincy  wrote 

to  E.  W.  Webb,   "his  puff  of  Dr.  C 's  Anti 

Scrofulous  Panacea,     ...     in  which  he  said  tha' 
he  felt  it  'permeating  the  whole  system  in  the  mos 
delightful    manner.7       *  Permeating    the    system  ! 
said  [Dr.  Harvey  E.]  Weston,  with  the  malice  <r 
a    regular    practitioner;    'why,    it  was    the    firs 
time  he  had  taken  a  glass  of  grog,  and  he  didn't 
know  how  good  it  was  ! '  "  1 

It  was  the  advertising  testimonials,  we  are  told 
by  his  sons,  which  led  him  to  have  such  faith  in 
each  new  panacea,  and  which  his  faith  in  human 
nature  caused  him  to  credit.  Usually  he  left  the 
medicine  in  his  closet  unopened,  "for  a  rainy 
day";  or  if  he  opened  the  bottle,  he  generally  took 
only  a  few  doses,  abandoning  the  experiment  in  case 
the  medicine  did  not  seem  to  produce  an  immediate 
beneficial  effect.  His  method  accordingly  provided 
its  own  safeguard.  It  requires,  however,  a  full 
measure  of  his  own  good  humor  to  refrain  from 
harsh  judgments  over  this  feebler  side  of  a  strong 
and  sensible  nature.  Garrison's  dabblings  in  self 
cure  and  the  taking  of  advertised  nostrums  had 
1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  323. 


THE  PEEIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        303 

their  amusing  features,  yet  really  deserve  to  be 
condemned  as  something  worse  than  a  mere  foible. 

With  equally  naive  enthusiasm  he  rejoiced  in  all 
kinds  of  labor-saving  inventions,  fitting  his  house 
hold  with  every  "gimcrack"  in  the  way  of  house 
keeping  machinery  which  his  means  would  allow. 
In  the  same  spirit  he  welcomed  phonography  to 
Boston  in  1845.  His  sanguine  temperament  led 
him  to  hope  in  it  for  the  beginning  which  would 
lead  to  a  universal  language.  He  had  felt  the  need 
of  such  a  language  at  international  conventions, 
where  he  had  been  led  to  "  testify  against  the  exist 
ing  diversity  of  tongues  among  mankind,  as  un 
natural,  fraudulent,  afflictive,  insupportable." 
This  is  perhaps  the  quaintest  manifestation  of  the 
unhistorical,  anti-national,  unimaginative  temper 
necessary  to  generate  the  spirit  of  "  universal 
reform."  He  might,  with  equal  consistency,  have 
introduced  resolutions  against  the  law  of  gravita 
tion,  as  impeding  the  upward,  angelic  movement 
to  which  man  is  obviously  entitled  by  virtue  of  his 
aspiring  nature.  A  language,  like  a  state  of 
society,  is  slowly  wrought  by  the  painful  struggle 
of  the  ages.  At  least,  Garrison  hoped,  phonog 
raphy  would  correct  the  monstrous  absurdities  of 
English  spelling,  and  "  enable  the  ignorant  to  be 
taught  to  read  and  write  in  an  incredibly  short  space 
of  time, — compressing  the  labor  of  months  into 
weeks  and  of  years  into  months."  Naturally  he 
never  learned  to  use  the  "  plain,  simple,  consistent, 
and  infallibly  sure ' '  system,  though  for  a  time  he 
added  phonography  to  the  reforms  on  which  he 


304          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABBISON 

lectured.  The  enormous  importance  to  his  cause  of 
rendering  the  speaker  independent  of  mobs  fry 
enabling  him  to  reach  the  world  through  the  papers 
escaped  his  insight  at  first,  though  he  soon  recog 
nized  it. 

In  spite  of  his  hopeful  and  uurelaxed  activity, 
Garrison  must  have  felt  that  little  anti -slavery 
progress  had  been  made  since  1845,  and  he  did  not 
understand  the  signs  of  the  times  when  in  1854  the 
passage  of  the  Nebraska  Bill  shook  into  sudden 
crystallization  the  overcharged  waters  of  Northern 
feeling.  The  measure  dealt  with  the  region  known 
as  Nebraska, — that  portion  of  the  Louisiana  Pur 
chase  west  of  Iowa,  Missouri,  and  Minnesota, 
including  the  present  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  the 
greater  part  of  North  and  South  Dakota  and  of 
Montana,  and  parts  of  Colorado  and  Wyoming. 
By  the  Missouri  Compromise,  this  region  had  been 
closed  to  slavery,  as  lying  north  of  36°  30'.  By  the 
Compromise  of  1850  the  feelings  of  the  South  had 
been  salved  as  to  California  by  leaving  the  decision 
upon  the  lawfulness  of  slavery  within  the  territories 
of  Utah  and  New  Mexico  to  the  inhabitants  of  those 
territories.  The  South,  however,  could  not  rest  so 
long  as  slavery  was  restricted,  and  the  success  of 
the  Compromise  led  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  senator 
from  Illinois,  to  bid  for  Southern  support  of  his 
candidacy  for  the  presidency,  by  proposing  to 
apply  the  principle  of  "  squatter  sovereignty 'Mo 
the  territory  of  Nebraska.  In  the  view  of  the 
anti-slavery  element  in  the  North,  this  was  an  act 
of  the  basest  bad  faith.  The  North  believed  itself 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        305 

to  have  borne  patiently  the  menacings  of  the  South, 
and  to  have  done,  if  not  "  with  alacrity  "  yet  with 
conscientiousness,  its  full  duty  in  maintaining  the 
bargain  to  support  slavery,  which  had  become  so 
distasteful  to  it.  Row  to  see  the  compact  of  1820 
repudiated,  to  hear  calmly  suggested  the  division  of 
the  free  states  by  a  vast  wedge  of  territory,  easily 
accessible  from  the  South,  across  which  it  seemed 
probable  that  the  movement  of  immigrants  from 
the  free  states  would  be  impeded  by  the  presence  of 
slavery  on  the  soil,  at  last  moved  the  North  to  gen 
uine  and  profound  anger. 

To  Garrison  the  free- soil  wrath  was  a  trifle.  He 
did  not  regard  it  as  really  serious.  He  had  watched 
the  South  advancing  from,  the  Missouri  Compromise 
to  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  thence  to  the  Com 
promise  of  1850  and  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Now 
the  free- soil  territories  were  to  be  invaded,  and  only 
the  last  step,  the  opening  of  the  whole  country  to 
slavery,  would  remain.  He  was  accustomed  to  see 
Northern  bluster  subside  into  cowardly  retreat,  and 
Southern  threats  successful  in  gaining  all  that  the 
South  demanded.  He  had  no  sympathy  with  a 
settlement  which  did  not  wholly  destroy  slavery  in 
the  United  States,  or  separate  the  country  entirely 
from  the  curse.  The  Nebraska  bill  passed  May  22, 
1854.  Two  days  later  occurred  the  arrest  in  Boston 
of  Anthony  Burns,  as  a  fugitive  from  Virginia.  A 
multitude  of  people  happened  to  be  in  the  city  at 
tending  various  conventions.  Others  came  expressly 
to  resist  the  officers.  An  assault  intended  to  release 
the  fugitive,  in  which  a  deputy  marshal  lost  his 


306          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKBISOST 

life,  was  repulsed,  and  at  last  the  commissioner  sur 
rendered  Bums  to  his  master's  agent.  Guarded  by 
the  armed  forces  of  the  United  States  and  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  the  unfortunate 
man  was  marched  to  the  vessel  which  was  to  carry 
him  back  to  slavery. 

'  To  Abolitionists  the  slave  power  seemed  stronger 
than  ever.  They  did  not  believe  that  at  this  time 
more  than  at  any  other  the  popular  indignation  of 
the  North  meant  anything.  The  disunion  cry  of 
1845,  the  auger  against  the  Mexican  War,  the 
outburst  against  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  had  sunk 
into  sluggish  and  unholy  hypocritical  quiet. 
Now  it  appeared  that  slavery  was  to  spread  over 
the  Union.  The  annexation  of  Cuba  ;  the  gaining 
of  a  foothold  in  Hayti ;  the  acquisition  of  a  slave 
empire  in  the  valley  of  the  Amazon  were  all  seri 
ously  threatened  j — and  where,  the  Abolitionists 
asked,  was  the  force  to  resist  these  projects  of  the 
South,  intoxicated  with  success  ? 

On  the  fourth  of  July,  1854,  at  the  abolitionist 
celebration  in  Frainingharn,  Mass.,  Garrison  led  the 
proceedings.  After  Scriptui^e  readings  and  some 
remarks,  he  proceeded  to  manifest  by  a  symbolic 
action  "the  estimation  in  which  he  held  the  pro- 
slavery  laws  and  deeds  of  the  nation."  First  he 
burnt  a  copy  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Borrow 
ing  the  formula  from  the  solemn  national  adjura 
tions  in  Deuteronomy,  he  said,  "  And  let  all  the 
people  say,  Amen."  His  audience  responded 
cheerfully.  Then  he  burnt  the  decision  of  the 
commissioner  remanding  Burns  to  slavery ;  then 


THE  PERIOD  OF  COMPROMISE        307 

the  charge  of  the  court  as  to  the  treasonable  nature, 
of  the  assault  on  the  court  house  in  the  effort  to 
rescue  Burns.  Finally,  ''holding  up  the  United 
States  Constitution,  he  branded  it  as  the  source  and 
parent  of  the  other  atrocities, — 'a  covenant  with 
death  and  an  agreement  with  hell,' — and  consumed 
it  to  ashes  on  the  spot,  exclaiming,  '  So  perish  all 
compromises  with  tyranny !  and  let  all  the  people 
say,  Amen  ! ' 5 

With  this  theatrical  and  not,  as  we  coldly  judge 
it,  wholly  inspiring  act  Garrison  reached  the  cul 
mination  of  his  disunion  preaching,  which  had  been 
carried  on  for  thirteen  years.  As  opposed  to  the 
free-soil  principles,  the  disunion  policy  could  find 
its  only  statesmanlike  justification  on  the  basis  of 
Garrison's  own  profoundest  hopes  in  the  belief  that 
it  might  do  away  with  slavery  without  a  war.  His 
doctrine,  however,  was  a  doctrine  of  peace  only  in 
his  own  honestly  deluded  mind,  and  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  were  led  astray  by  his  sincere  yet  fallacious 
reasoning.  From  this  point  forward  the  story  of 
his  life  is  to  be  told  in  relation  to  the  armed  conflict 
that  he  had  dreaded ;  for  henceforth  the  forces 
which  he  himself  had  helped  to  create  and  which 
he  had  long  irnpotently  watched  as  they  followed  a 
course  contemned  by  him  as  a  feeble  and  wicked 
compromise,  were  to  burst  through  the  limits  which 
he  would  have  set  for  them.  The  struggle  had  in 
reality  begun  to  take  the  form  of  armed  and  violent 
conflict  leading  on  to  open  war. 


CHAPTEE  XIII 

THE   IKREPKESSIBLE   CONFLICT 

THE  Nebraska  Bill  ostensibly  left  it  to  the  people 
of  each  incoming  state  to  determine  whether  or  not 
slavery  should  be  tolerated  upon  its  soil.  The  bill 
really  gave  up  Kansas  to  the  horrors  of  a  hideous 
form  of  internecine  conflict,  the  unregulated  violence 
of  guerrilla  bands,  mob  murder,  private  assassina 
tion,  waste,  plunder,  and  arson,  without  the  decisive 
matching  of  forces  in  the  open  field.  As  the  mag 
nitude  of  the  conflict  increased,  and  the  cause  of  the 
free-soil  settlers  in  Kansas  against  the  Border  ruf 
fians  was  preached  in  the  North  as  a  crusade,  Gar 
rison  withheld  his  sympathy.  He  still  taught  peace 
as  a  duty.  When  Henry  Ward  Beech er  said, 
"You  might  as  well  read  the  Bible  to  a  herd  of 
buffaloes  as  to  those  fellows  who  follow  Atchison 
and  Stringfellow,"  Garrison  replied:  "For  our 
own  part,  we  deeply  compassionate  the  miserable 
and  degraded  tools  of  the  slave  propagandists,  who 
know  not  what  they  do,  and  (as  Mr.  Beecher  cor 
rectly  says)  are  '  raked  together  from  the  purlieus  of 
a  frontier  slave  state,  drugged  with  whiskey,  and 
hounded  on  by  broken  and  degenerate  politicians  ; r 
.  .  .  yet  they  are  not  beasts,  nor  to  be  treated  as 
beasts.  .  .  .  When  Jesus  said,  t  Fear  not  those 
who  kill  the  body, '  He  broke  every  deadly  weapon  ; 
when  He  said,  .  .  .  'Father,  forgive  them,' 


THE  IEEEPEESSIBLE  CONFLICT       309 

.  .  .  He  did  not  treat  them  as  l  a  herd  of  buffa 
loes/  but  as  poor,  misguided  and  lost  men."  Gar 
rison  asserted,  also,  that  the  settlers  were  not  con 
tending  for  liberty,  but  for  their  rights  as  white  men. 
Having  "consented  to  make  the  existence  of  liberty 
or  slavery  dependent  on  the  will  of  the  majority, 
fairly  expressed,"  they  were  but  reaping  the  di 
vinely  ordered  retribution  of  their  own  sinful 
policy.  "  While  they  are  yet  standing  in  common 
with  the  great  body  of  the  American  people  with 
their  feet  upon  the  necks  of  four  millions  of  chattel 
slaves,  .  .  .  with  what  face  can  they  ask  for 
the  sympathy  and  cooperation  of  those  who  are 
battling  for  freedom  on  a  world- wide  basis?"1 
Finally,  Garrison  asked,  if  the  settlers  should  be 
furnished  with  Sharp's  rifles,  why  not  the  slaves? 
"  Who  will  go  for  arming  the  slave  population?" 
The  answer  was  to  be  given  at  Harper' s  Ferry. 

Like  the  Free-Soil  party,  the  new  Eepublican 
party  evoked  Garrison's  approval  of  its  aims  as  far 
as  they  went,  but  left  him  dissatisfied  by  its  devo 
tion  to  the  Union,  and  its  toleration  of  slavery  un 
der  any  circumstances.  His  view  of  the  Aboli 
tionist's  duty  was  that  he  must  not  abandon  his 
principles,  "for  they  are  immutable  and  eternal ;" 
or  lessen  his  demands,  "for  they  are  just  and 
right;"  or  "postpone  the  glorious  object,  .  .  . 
the  immediate  extinction  of  slavery,  for  that  would 
be  fatuity."  He  must  not  "substitute  the  non-ex 
tension  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  for  that  would 
be  to  wrestle  with  an  effect,  while  leaving  the  cause 

1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  437-440, 


310          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

untouched. 7 7     He  must ( '  keep  his  own  hands  clean, ' ? 
and  "call  to  repentance"  his  guilty  land. 

The  burden  of  his  preaching  was  peaceful  dis 
union.  In  1855,  as  his  sons  remark,1  he  anticipated 
the  phrase  which  later,  on  the  lips  of  Lincoln,  be 
came  historic: — UA  church  or  government  which 
accords  the  same  privileges  to  slavery  as  to  liberty 
is  a  'house  divided  against  itself,  which  cannot 
stand.'"  In  1857,  after  the  election  of  Buchanan, 
Garrison  and  his  associates  agitated  for  disunion 
with  new  hope.  Among  the  names  now  first  ap 
pearing  on  the  list  of  active  propagandists,  the 
most  noteworthy  is  that  of  Thomas  Wentworth 
Higginson,  of  Worcester,  Mass.,  then  a  young  Uni 
tarian  clergyman  of  generous  spirit,  whose  enthu 
siasm  burnt  with  steady  heat  under  a  lively  flame  of 
wit  and  debonair  cheerfulness.  He  was  no  non- 
resistant,  for  he  had  led  the  assault  to  deliver' 
Anthony  Burns.  Like  the  older  Abolitionists  after 
the  annexation  of  Texas,  he  was  disappointed  upon 
the  election  of  Buchanan  to  find  so  little  vigor  in 
the  demand  for  a  separation  from  the  Union.  UT 
talk  with  my  Republican  friends  in  vain  to  know 
whence  comes  this  wondrous  change  which  has  al 
tered  their  whole  horizon  since  election.  I  talk 
with  a  man  who  said  before  election  :  '  If  Buchanan 
is  elected,  I  am  with  you  henceforward — I  am  a 
disuuionist,'  and  I  find  he  thinks  there  must  have 
been  some  mistake  about  that  remark  ;  he  thinks  it 
must  have  been  his  partner  who  said  it,  not  he. 
They  all  have  their  partners  ! ' ' 

1  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  420.  *  Ibid.,  p.  450. 


THE  IKBEPKESSIBLE  CONFLICT       311 

The  Dred  Scott  decision  of  March  6,  1857,  letting 
down  practically  all  existing  barriers  against  the  in 
troduction  of  slaveholders  and  their  slaves  into 
Kansas  and  elsewhere,  and  angering  and  alarming 
the  Eepublicans,  encouraged  the  Abolitionists  to 
believe  the  time  auspicious  for  calling  a  disunion 
convention  of  all  the  free  states,  to  meet  in  Cleve 
land  in  October,  1857.  The  financial  panic  which 
began  in  September  caused  the  convention  to  be 
postponed  ;  and  the  continuance  of  disturbed  finan 
cial  conditions,  together  with  the  religious  revival 
of  1858,  prevented  it  from  being  held  in  that  year. 
Then  came  the  excitement  of  the  impending  con 
flict,  the  political  campaign,  and  the  actual  out 
break  of  war.  The  opportunity  to  hold  the  con 
vention  had  gone  by. 

The  growing  intensity  of  sectional  feeling,  both 
North  and  South,  found  decided  expression  during 
the  year  1858.  It  was  in  this  year  that  Seward 
affirmed  the  existence  of  the  "  irrepressible  conflict 
between  opposing  and  enduring  forces,"  and  that 
Lincoln  declared  :  "  '  A  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand J  ;  I  believe  that  this  government  can 
not  endure  half  slave  and  half  free."  Garrison, 
while  doing  all  in  his  power  by  voice  and  pen  to 
confirm  in  the  North  the  passion  for  freedom,  still 
consistently  with  his  fixed  principles  preached 
against  violence  and  urged  peace.  If  it  must  needs 
be  that  the  offense  of  war  should  come,  he  was 
determined  that  he  should  not  be  the  man  through 
whom  the  offense  came.  It  is  hard,  however,  not 
to  think  of  him  as  then  in  a  sort  of  waking  trance. 


312          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKEISON 

While  young  Mr.  Higginson  and  Theodore  Parker, 
privy  to  the  counsels  of  John  Brown,  were  predict 
ing  the  bloodshed  which  the  older  man  at  least 
should  have  striven  to  prevent,  Garrison  deprecated 
the  warlike  temper  now  taking  possession  of  that 
cause  which  had  been  baptized  in  the  spirit  of 
pea<;e,  and  prophesied  as  a  result  a  declension  in 
the  moral  power  of  the  Abolitionists. 

On  the  night  of  October  16,  1859,  took  place  the 
overt  act,  the  baptism  of  blood  to  which  Higginson 
and  Parker  were  looking  forward.  It  is  not  neces 
sary  here  to  recount  the  story  of  the  stern  night 
and  day  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  of  the  lofty  dignity 
with  which  Brown  endured  his  trial  and  met 
his  death.  Garrison,  on  account  of  his  non- 
resistant  views,  had  not  been  made  the  confi 
dant  of  Brown,  when  the  latter  divulged  his  plans 
to  some  Abolitionists,  in  order  to  obtain  their  aid. 
Garrison  and  Brown  had  met  two  years  before  in 
the  parlor  of  Theodore  Parker,  and  had  had  an 
argument  before  a  group  of  listeners  on  the  ques 
tion  of  peace,  Brown  quoting  the  Old  Testament, 
and  Garrison  the  New,  while  Parker  cited  the 
rebellion  of  the  American  colonies  against  England 
as  an  analogy.  Brown  attended  the  convention  of 
the  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society  at  Boston  in 
May,  1859,  and  said  as  he  went  away  :  "These  men 
are  all  talk;  what  is  needed  is  action — action!" 

When  the  news  from  Harper's  Ferry  reached 
Boston,  Garrison  gave  Brown  unstinted  and  de 
served  praise  for  honesty,  conscientiousness,  courage 
and  disinterestedness,  and  bore  witness  to  Brown's 


THE  IKREPKESSIBLE  CONFLICT       313 

"deeply  religious  nature,  powerfully  wrought  upon 
by  the  trials  through  which  he  had  passed." 
Garrison  also  testified  to  Brown's  "  sincere  belief 
that  he  had  been  raised  up  by  God  to  deliver  the 
oppressed  in  this  country  by  the  way  he  had 
chosen,''  and  to  the  wisdom,  dignity,  and  impress- 
iveness  of  his  answers  to  the  interrogatories 
addressed  to  him  during  his  imprisonment  and  on 
his  trial.  No  one  can  fail  to  recognize  the  force  of 
Brown's  nature,  or  to  be  impressed  by  his  noble 
bearing  in  the  face  of  death.  Yet  justice  must  add 
to  Garrison's  favorable  outline  of  his  character 
fanatic  ruthlessness,  which  would  "shed  no  unnec 
essary  blood,"  but  would  spill  by  private  assassina 
tion  or  open  violence  all  the  blood  deemed  necessary 
to  the  accomplishment  of  his  purpose ;  ignorance 
and  an  uninformed  imagination,  producing  an 
absurdly  inadequate  conception  of  the  means 
required  to  attain  his  ends  ;  and  narrow  unintel- 
ligence,  which  could  see  in  a  course  of  action  the 
one  result  directly  intended,  and  could  not  under 
stand  that  the  other  inevitable  consequences  might 
be  those  of  most  importance.  Garrison's  com 
ments  show  how  he  was  stirred  by  Brown' s  simple 
and  heroic  nature.  His  peace  principles  were  not 
those  of  peace  at  any  price,  but  of  the  peace  of 
self-sacrifice,  fortitude,  and  martyrdom, — which  is 
nearer  to  a  war  of  desperate  abandonment  and  de 
votion  than  to  the  peace  of  cowardice  and  servility. 
When  taunted  as  to  his  non-resistant  doctrines,  he 
declared  his  unshaken  faith  in  their  beneficence 
and  glory  ;  but  said,  "Bather  than  see  men  wearing 


314         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

their  chains  in  a  cowardly  and  servile  spirit,  I 
would,  as  an  advocate  of  peace  .  .  .  see  them 
breaking  the  head  of  the  tyrant  with  their  chains." 
Hence  he  wished  "  success  to  every  slave  insur 
rection." 

It  is  in  the  last  words  quoted  that  Garrison's  lack 
of  insight  into  the  nature  of  Brown's  action  be 
comes  evident.  A  rebellion  from  within  of  slaves 
aspiring  to  be  free,  Garrison  might  consistently 
have  sympathized  with  and  respected.  Though,  on 
his  principles,  less  worthy  than  patient  resignation, 
it  would  have  been  nobler  than  cowardly  obedience 
to  the  inevitable.  But  the  commission  of  cold 
blooded  murder  in  the  attempt  to  incite  from  with 
out  a  struggle  for  freedom  among  a  people  too  tame 
even  to  respond  should  have  been  looked  upon  not 
only  by  him  but  by  believers  in  force  as  mad  and 
wicked.  The  whole  effort  was  unreal.  The  few 
slaves  freed  by  Brown  returned  gladly  to  servile 
comfort.  Douglass's  refusal  to  accompany  Brown 
should  have  taught  at  least  Brown's  educated 
advisers  how  hopeless  was  his  project.  If  on  the 
other  hand,  the  action  of  Brown  had  a  dramatic 
element  and  was  intended  to  impress  the  world  in 
case  the  direct  object  was  not  attained,  the  prompt 
repudiation  of  it  by  the  Bepublican  leaders  proves 
that  it  was  miscalculated.  Brown's  acts  neither 
helped  nor  hindered  the  cause  of  freedom.  As  his 
slayings  at  Pottawattomie  had  no  effect  but  to 
make  the  conflict  more  sanguinary,  so  his  deed  at 
Harper's  Ferry  freed  no  negroes,  changed  no  votes, 
and  gave  strength  to  no  hesitant  souls.  It  alarmed 


THE  IKREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT       315 

the  South,  producing  a  crop  of  Southern  violence 
such  that  Garrison  compiled  a  tract  of  a  hundred 
and  forty-four  pages  on  the  subject,  called  "The 
New  Eeign  of  Terror."  Assuredly,  as  a  non- 
resistant,  Garrison  never  had  a  better  text  for  his 
sermon  than  in  the  violence  of  John  Brown. 

Garrison's  means  had  been  heavily  taxed  by  the 
anti-slavery  hospitality  of  which  his  house  was 
inevitably  the  centre.  The  obligation  to  relieve  him 
was  felt  by  some  of  the  Abolitionists  to  rest  upon 
them  as  a  body  ;  and  one  of  them  in  particular,  Mr. 
Charles  F.  Hovey,  a  man  of  wealth,  contributed  lib 
erally  to  that  end.  During  his  life  he  often  sent 
gifts,  small  or  large,  unobtrusively  and  with  delicate 
kindness.  With  homely  thoughtfulness,  he  at  one 
time,  when  Mrs.  Garrison  had  a  houseful  of  guests, 
sent  her  a  barrel  of  flour,  accompanying  it  with  a 
graceful  note.  Mr.  Hovey  was  a  generous  con 
tributor  to  the  fund  with  which  the  house,  No.  14  Dix 
Place,  near  Hollis  Street,  in  which  the  Garrisons 
had  been  living  since  1853,  was  bought  for  them  in 
1855,  and  notified  Garrison  that  he  intended  to  pay 
him  annually  the  interest  on  a  sum  equal  to  a 
legacy  designed  for  him.  Garrison  accepted  the 
gift,  stipulating  that  the  donor  should  feel  at 
liberty  to  discontinue  it  at  any  time  and  for  any 
reason,  and  that  it  should  not  be  regarded  as  in  any 
way  controlling  the  liberty  of  the  recipient's 
thought  and  speech.  At  Mr.  Hovey' s  death,  which 
occurred  in  1859,  he  left  personal  bequests  to 
several  of  the  Abolitionists  who  had  suffered  in 
purse  as  a  result  of  their  devotion,  and  established 


316          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKBISON 

a  fund  for  the  support  of  a  number  of  reforms. 
The  trustees  were  chosen  from  the  i  i  extreme  left ' ' 
of  the  Garrisonians. 

Toward  the  end  of  1858,  Garrison  lost  his  aunt, 
Mrs.  Charlotte  Newell,  his  mother's  youngest  sister. 
Since  1854  he  had  borne  the  burden  of  her  support, 
and  found  the  expenses  of  her  last  illness  a  heavy 
load  to  carry.  It  was  made  lighter  by  the  curious 
discovery  of  a  forgotten  deposit  of  several  hundred 
dollars  which  had  been  placed  by  Garrison's  mother 
in  a  savings-bank  in  Baltimore,  and  which  was  paid 
over  to  him  as  the  sole  heir. 

During  the  years  from  1855  to  1860  Garrison's 
health  continued  miserable,  and  he  was  frequently 
obliged  to  give  up  his  work  for  a  time.  Through 
out  nearly  the  whole  of  1860,  he  was  unable  to  lec 
ture,  and  for  a  great  part  of  the  year  almost  unable 
to  write,  as  the  result  of  a  bronchial  affection.  The 
financial  panic,  moreover,  pressed  very  hard  on  the 
Garrisons,  whose  means  at  best  were  precarious. 
Their  hospitality  and  their  liberality  to  their  rela 
tives  were  not  the  only  extraordinary  burdens  upon 
them ;  their  hearts  were  open  to  the  cry  of  all  dis 
tress,  and  from  their  scanty  store  they  gave  freely 
to  the  suffering  near  them  and  the  wretched  far 
away. 

Garrison's  few  articles  in  the  Liberator  in  the  year 
1860  reiterated  his  judgment  of  the  Eepublican 
party ; — that  in  it  was  his  hope,  not  so  much  for 
what  it  was  as  for  what  it  promised  to  become.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  division  of  the  Democratic 
party  on  sectional  lines  was  instantly  hailed  by  him, 


THE  IKKEPRESS1BLE  CONFLICT       317 

The  election  of  Lincoln  was  by  this  division  as 
sured,  and  the  act  plainly  declared  that  the  South 
was  in  earnest  in  its  threats  of  secession  ;  since, 
otherwise,  the  leaders  of  the  party  would  not  have 
thrown  the  election  to  the  Republicans.  When 
Lincoln  was  nominated,  Garrison  had  nothing  to 
say.  He  admitted  to  the  Liberator  with  reluctance 
au  article  by  Phillips,  inveighing  against  Lincoln 
as  a  "  slave-hound  of  Illinois,'7  for  voting  in  favor 
of  a  provision  for  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves  from 
the  District  of  Columbia,  as  a  necessary  part  in  a 
measure  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  there.  Lincoln's 
own  words  and  the  attitude  of  his  party  seemed 
to  promise  nothing  directly  in  favor  of  abolition ; 
yet  the  tone  of  the  South  apparently  gave  assurance 
that  secession  was  to  take  place ;  and  secession,  as 
Garrison  was  convinced,  meant,  if  not  in  one  way, 
then  in  another,  the  end  of  slavery. 

After  the  election  there  followed  what  seemed  to 
Garrison  the  inevitable  reaction.  In  December  a 
meeting  in  Boston  "  in  memory  of  John  Brown" 
was  broken  up,  and  a  threatening  mob  followed 
Wendell  Phillips  home  from  the  Music  Hall,  where 
he  had  been  delivering  an  address.  In  Massa 
chusetts  and  in  Congress  alike  was  exhibited  a 
readiness  to  modify  what  little  had  been  done 
toward  the  ends  which  Garrison  cherished.  The 
Eepublican  party  was  determined  to  leave  the  South 
no  excuse  for  secession,  based  on  Northern  failure 
to  carry  out  the  agreements  of  the  Constitution.  It 
must  be  obvious  that  Garrison  could  not  act  with  or 
support  such  a  party.  The  leaders,  the  rank  and 


318         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISON 

file  of  men,  the  whole  world  had  110  expectation 
that  the  abolition  of  slavery  was  to  conie  soon 
through  Eepublican  success.  The  utmost  hoped  on 
one  side  and  feared  on  the  other,  was  that  slavery 
should  be  confined  within  the  area  which  it  already 
occupied,  and  should  in  time,  perhaps  as  the  result 
of  economic  forces,  die  out.  It  was  believed  by 
many  who  supported  the  hopeless  candidature  of 
Bell  and  Everett  that  within  ten  years,  from  pre 
vailing  indications,  the  North  would  have  grown  so 
strong  financially  and  commercially  as  to  convince 
the  South  of  the  futility  of  any  plan  of  successful 
withdrawal.  The  slavery  question  was  to  be  settled 
by  methods  not  as  yet  discernible  to  human  wit. 

When  the  news  of  the  secession  of  South  Carolina 
reached  Massachusetts,  Garrison's  view  of  the  situ 
ation  was  that  now  the  country  could  free  itself 
from  slavery  at  a  stroke.  He  had  long  urged  peace 
ful  dissolution  ;  why  not  now  permit  a  peaceful  se 
cession  of  the  slave  states,  and  leave  them  to  reap 
the  fruits  of  their  own  sin  and  folly  ?  Thus,  in  the 
Liberator  of  January  4,  1861,  he  says  :  "  All  Union- 
saving  efforts  are  simply  idiotic.  At  last  the  ( cov 
enant  with  death'  is  annulled  and  the  'agreement 
with  hell  >  broken — at  least  by  the  action  of  South 
Carolina,  and  ere  long  by  all  the  slaveholding 
states,  for  their  doom  is  one."  It  was  in  accord 
ance  with  these  views  that  on  February  15,  1801,  he 
proposed  a  convention  of  free  states,  "  called  to  or 
ganize  an  independent  government  on  free  and  just 
principles,"  maintaining  that  "to  think  of  whip 
ping  the  South  into  subjection,  and  extorting  al 


THE  IKKEPKESSIBLE  CONFLICT       319 

legiance  from  four  millions  of  people  at  the  cannon's 
mouth  is  utterly  chimerical.  True,  it  is  in  the  power 
of  the  North  to  deluge  her  soil  with  blood,  and  in 
flict  upon  her  the  most  terrible  sufferings  ;  but  not 
to  break  her  spirit  or  change  her  determination." 
He  thus  saves  himself  logically  and  is  consistent, 
but  apparently  by  making  the  slaves  themselves  a 
negligible  quantity. 

If  Garrison's  propositions  sound  chimerical,  we 
must  remember  that  not  only  Buchanan's  adminis 
tration,  but  the  leaders  of  the  Eepublican  party  did 
not  yet  put  forth  a  clear  policy  to  meet  secession. 
Garrison,  meantime,  judged  the  Eepublicau  leaders 
by  standards  of  statesmanship  absolutely  incompat 
ible  with  his  own  principles  of  non-resistance,  but 
which  do  him  credit.  Of  Seward  he  writes :  "In 
this  state  of  things, — when  the  elements  are  melting 
with  fervent  heat,  and  thunders  are  uttering  their 
voices,  and  a  great  earthquake  is  shaking  the  land 
from  centre  to  circumference,  threatening  to  engulf 
whatever  free  institutions  are  yet  visible, — Mr. 
Seward,  with  the  eyes  of  expectant  millions  fast 
ened  upon  him  as  '  the  pilot  to  weather  the  storm/ 
rises  in  the  Senate  to  utter  well-turned  periods  in 
glorification  of  a  Union  no  longer  in  existence,  and 
to  talk  of  '  meeting  prejudice  with  conciliation,  ex 
action  with  concession  which  surrenders  no  prin 
ciple  (!),  and  violence  with  the  right  hand  of 
peace '  !  The  tiger  is  to  be  propitiated  by  crying 
'  pussy-cat ! '  and  leviathan  drawn  out  with  a  hook  ! 
The  word  *  treason '  or  *  traitors '  is  never  once 
mentioned — no  recital  is  made  of  any  of  the  num- 


320          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

berless  outrages  committed — no  call  is  made  upon 
the  President  to  be  true  to  his  oath,  and  to  meet  the 
public  exigency  with  all  the  forces  at  his  command 
—no  patriotic  indignation  flushes  his  cheek — but 
all  is  calm  as  a  summer's  morning,  cool,  compliant, 
uuimpassioned  !  His  boldest  word  is,  '  We  already 
have  disorder,  and  violence  is  begun.'  How  very 
discreet !  It  is  a  penny-whistle  used  to  hush  down 
a  thunder-storm  of  the  first  magnitude — capping 
Vesuvius  with  a  sheet  of  straw  paper  !  And  this  is 
the  statesmanship  of  William  H.  Seward,  in  a  cri 
sis  unparalleled  in  our  national  history !  Stand 
aside  !  '  The  hour '  has  come,  but  where  is  i  the 
man'?"  l 

Garrison  soon  felt  confident  that  in  Lincoln  there 
was  "a  man,"  if  not  "f/teman"  ;  that  in  him  there 
were  the  force  and  insight  adequate  to  meet  great 
occasions,  if  not  to  dominate  them.  Dissatisfied  as 
his  views  forced  him  to  be  with  Lincoln's  frank 
declaration  of  his  obedience  to  the  Constitution,  he 
spoke  with  respect  of  his  dignity  and  courage  at  the 
time  of  his  inauguration,  and  of  his  refusal  to  make 
concessions  to  treason  or  compromises  with  re 
bellion.  On  the  other  hand,  the  full  measure  of 
Lincoln's  transcendent  intellectual  power  and  sad 
and  patient  greatness  was  probably  never  taken  by 
Garrison.  His  praises  sound  grudging,  and  his 
criticism  carping.  For  example,  he  says  of  Lin 
coln's  message  in  1862, 2  "  It  is  very  evident  the  Pres 
ident  writes  all  his  own  messages,  for  they  are  all 
alike  bunglingly  expressed,  and  quite  discreditable 

1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  13.  »  Liberator,  March  14,  1862. 


THE  IEEEPEESSIBLE  CONFLICT       321 

in  that  particular  as  official  documents."  Whether 
or  no  this  charge  against  the  style  of  Lincoln's 
earlier  state  papers  is  well  grounded,  the  comment 
is  proof  of  Garrison's  failure  to  appreciate  the  re 
markable  skill  and  still  more  remarkable  temper 
of  these  documents,  which  combine  political  tact 
and  statesmanlike  depth  and  power  with  absolute 
frankness. 

The  concussion  of  the  first  shot  against  the  works 
of  Su niter  may  still  be  felt  across  the  intervening 
years  almost  as  a  physical  fact.  So  forceful  a  shock 
was  needed  to  rouse  the  mighty  nation  from  its 
slumber,  restless  as  that  slumber  was,  and  impel  it 
to  put  forth  its  strength  on  the  worthiest  occasion 
and  in  the  greatest  conflict  the  world  has  known. 
When  the  war  had  once  begun,  some  of  the  Aboli 
tionists  "stood  still  to  see  the  salvation7'  which 
their  God  was  working,  and  some  could  perceive  no 
signs  of  hope  or  promise.  Garrison  saw  that  the 
tremendous  conflict  was  tending  "  irresistibly  toward 
the  goal  of  universal  emancipation,  or  else  to  a 
separation  between  the  free  and  slaveholdiug 
states."  He  joined  in  advising  the  omission  of  the 
anniversary  meeting  of  the  American  Society,  and 
counseled  the  Abolitionists  to  do  nothing  to  thwart 
or  impede  the  movement  of  popular  feeling  against 
the  South.  Thus,  in  the  Liberator  his  language  for 
months  was  far  more  guarded  than  usual  in  its 
criticism  of  political  conditions  and  public  men. 
The  din  of  politics  had  brought  to  his  ears  some 
terrestrial  lessons. 


322          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARBISON 

The  administration  of  Lincoln  had  come  into 
power  pledged  not  to  interfere  with  slavery  where 
it  existed.  As  for  Lincoln  himself,  he  "disliked 
slavery  and  feared  emancipation."  His  duty,  more 
over,  compelled  him  to  hold  together  all  the  ele 
ments  of  the  Union  of  which  he  was  the  head  ;  and 
in  particular  it  obliged  him.  not  to  offend  the  loyal 
border  slave  states.  Hence  for  many  months  he 
himself  not  only  did  not  take  any  steps  toward  free 
ing  the  slaves,  but  disavowed  and  annulled  the 
proceedings  of  his  subordinates  looking  in  that 
direction.  Within  two  months  after  Lincoln's 
inauguration,  Garrison  called  for  emancipation 
under  the  war  power,  following  the  suggestion  made 
long  before  by  John  Quiucy  Adams.  For  the  time 
being,  however,  he  did  not  press  this  demand  vigor 
ously.  Not  until  Lincoln's  prompt  letter  of  Sep 
tember  llth,  revoking  the  unwise  and  premature 
order  of  Fremont  emancipating  the  slaves  of  rebels 
in  arms  in  Missouri,  did  Garrison  comment  unfa 
vorably  on  the  President's  course.  Then,  printing 
the  letter  within  heavy  black  rules,  he  charged  the 
President  with  a  "  serious  dereliction  of  duty." 

To  Lincoln's  message  at  the  end  of  the  year 
he  gave  no  praise  except  for  recommending  the 
recognition  of  the  independence  of  Hayti  and 
Liberia.  As  the  year  1862  advanced,  Garrison  felt 
that  the  time  had  come  to  make  stronger  efforts  to 
organize  public  opinion  in  favor  of  emancipation  as 
a  war  measure,  and  wrote  and  circulated  a  memorial 
to  Congress,  urging  the  unconditional  emancipation 
of  the  slaves  of  rebels,  and  emancipation  with  com- 


THE  IKEEPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT       323 

pensation  of  the  slaves  of  loyal  citizens.  In  an 
editorial  addressed  to  the  President  and  his  Cabinet, 
he  declared,  tastelessly  italicizing  the  words  :  "  To 
refuse  to  deliver  these  captive  millions  who  are  legally 
in  your  power,  is  tantamount  to  the  crime  of  their 
original  enslavement ;  and  their  blood  shall  a  right 
eous  God  require  at  your  hands.' '  *  He  devoted  his 
editorials  more  and  more  to  the  cause  of  immediate 
emancipation,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  replaced 
the  old  motto,— "  The  United  States  Constitution  is 
a  covenant  with  death  and  an  agreement  with  hell," 
with  a  new  one, — "  Proclaim  liberty  throughout  the 
land,  and  to  all  the  inhabitants  thereof. " 

The  outbreak  of  the  war  by  increasing  prices, 
disturbing  finances,  and  engrossing  the  attention  of 
the  public,  had  greatly  diminished  the  support  given 
to  anti-slavery  journals.  It  was  proposed  to  unite 
the  Standard  and  the  Liberator  in  order  to  keep  both 
alive  ;  but  Garrison,  doubtful  as  it  was  whether  the 
Liberator  could  be  maintained,  was  determined  not 
to  compromise  his  freedom  by  any  such  alliance. 
The  excitement  and  hopeful  anticipation  of  the 
year  seem  to  have  affected  his  health  favorably. 
He  attended  the  Pennsylvania  Anti-Slavery  Society 
at  West  Chester,  in  the  heart  of  Pennsylvania 
Quakerdom,  and  spent  a  day  or  two  on  the  way  in 
New  York,  where  he  was  kindly  received  by  people 
who  had  previously  shown  him  little  sympathy,  and 
another  day  in  Philadelphia  among  a  circle  of 
Quakers,  between  whom  and  himself  had  long  sub 
sisted  bonds  of  close  association.  This  year  he  lost 
1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  35. 


324:         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKRISON 

his  old  friend  Francis  Jackson,  who  left  bequests  tc 
various  reforms  and  a  personal  legacy  to  Garrison. 
In  the  first  part  of  1862,  though  Congress  had 
given  proof  of  growing  anti-slavery  tendencies 
throughout  the  North,  the  administration  showed 
no  sign  of  heeding  the  cry  for  emancipation.  ID 
March,  Lincoln  made  the  suggestion  that  the 
Federal  government  might  cooperate  with  any  state 
desiring  to  accept  a  system  of  gradual  emancipation, 
— a  step  hailed  with  enthusiasm  by  Phillips,  bul 
with  contempt  by  Garrison,  who  saw  in  every  post 
ponement  of  the  final  act  a  needless  and  fatuous 
compromise  with  sin.  Congress  by  many  acts  con 
tinued  to  advance  the  cause  of  freedom  in  detail  ; 
but  the  President  again  cast  down  the  abolitionist 
hopes.  In  May,  whenMajor-General  David  Hunter 
issued  a  military  order,  abolishing  slavery  in  the 
Department  of  the  South,  including  Georgia, 
Florida  and  South  Carolina,  Lincoln  sent  a  message 
revoking  the  order  even  before  he  had  official 
notice.  Garrison  asked  him  the  same  question  he 
had  put  to  Seward,  "  Canst  thou  draw  out  leviathan 
with  a  hook?"  Lincoln  still  urged  his  plan  of 
gradual  emancipation,  combining  with  it  the  per 
mission  to  individual  states  to  elect  immediate 
emancipation,  and  a  scheme  for  colonizing  the 
negroes.  The  Border  States  would  have  none  of  it, 
and  the  President,  feeling  the  growing  strength  of 
the  sentiment  in  favor  of  emancipation,  warned 
their  representatives  that  they  had  better  accept 
such  an  offer  before  it  was  too  late,  for  their  system 
would  be  likely  to  perish  "by  mere  friction  and 


THE  IRBEPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT       325 

abrasion77  if  the  war  continued.  Representative 
colored  men,  on  the  other  hand,  decisively  repudi 
ated  the  idea  of  colonization.  Garrison  heaped  scorn 
upon  it  as  "  puerile,  absurd,  illogical,  impertinent, 
untimely.77  Finally,  in  September,  1862,  seventeen 
months  after  the  fall  of  Suinter,  the  President  issued 
his  proclamation  emancipating  all  slaves  in  the 
regions  which  should  be  in  rebellion  on  the  first  of 
January  following.  The  Border  States  were  not 
included,  and  plans  for  gradual  emancipation  and 
for  colonization  were  embodied  in  the  proclamation. 

Through  the  long  period  of  waiting,  Garrison, 
though  he  urged  the  President  to  action  and  criti 
cized  his  delay,  did  all  he  could  to  prevent  aboli 
tion  societies  from  condemning  the  administration. 
He  perceived  and  stated  with  vigor  some  of  the 
grounds  why  emancipation  should  be  put  off  until 
public  opinion  should  be  consolidated  in  its  favor, 
and  expressed  confidence  in  the  general  Tightness  of 
the  President^  purposes,  unnecessarily  timid  and 
cautious  though  he  thought  him.  When  taunted 
about  his  new  political  views,  he  replied  wittily : 
"You  remember  what  Benedick  in  the  play  says : 
'  When  I  said  I  would  die  a  bachelor,  I  did  not 
think  I  should  live  till  I  were  married.7  And  when 
I  said  I  would  not  sustain  the  Constitution,  because 
it  was  l  a  covenant  with  death  and  an  agreement 
with  hell,7  I  had  no  idea  that  I  should  live  to  see 
death  and  hell  secede.77 1 

In  the  same  spirit  he  strove  to  make  English 
sympathizers  with  abolition  perceive  that  the  in- 

1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  40. 


326          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISON 

evi table  result  of  Northern  success  would  be  eman 
cipation,  whether  the  North  willed  it  or  not ; — that 
the  South  was  fighting  for  slavery,  and  that  the 
North,  whatever  its  declared  objects,  was  fighting 
for  freedom,  and  had  a  right  to  the  support  of  the 
emancipationists  of  all  the  world.  The  sole  deter 
mining  force  which  withheld  the  British  govern 
ment  from  recognizing  the  Confederacy,  and  pre 
vented  the  equipping  of  more  and  more  dangerous 
"Alabamas"  was  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the 
non-conformist  middle  class.  Effective  organiza 
tion  was  given  to  this  sentiment  by  the  abolitionist 
societies,  largely  of  Garrison's  planting,  and  mostly 
directed  by  his  friends  and  associates.  It  is  just, 
therefore,  as  his  sons  suggest,1  to  attribute  to  him  an 
important  part  in  the  formation  of  the  English  pub 
lic  opinion  which  was  so  valuable  an  indirect  sup 
port  to  the  Union  cause. 

Garrison  welcomed  the  proclamation  as  a  step  in 
the  right  direction,  but  felt  no  real  enthusiasm  for 
it.  It  was  after  all  simply  a  war  measure, — a 
means  of  weakening  the  enemy,  not  the  tardy  right 
ing  of  a  great  wrong.  The  President  was  still  pro 
posing  compensated  emancipation  in  the  loyal 
Border  States,  and  avowed  his  desire  to  postpone  it 
in  those  states  for  a  long  period.  He  suggested 
1900  as  an  appropriate  date,  and  avoided  giving 
any  approval  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  loyal 
states  except  by  voluntary  action  of  the  states  co 
operating  with  the  general  government.  Garrison's 
judgment  of  Lincoln's  cautious  policy  was  ex- 

1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  66. 


THE  IEEEPEESSIBLE  CONFLICT       327 

pressed  in  a  letter  to  his  daughter:  "The  Presi 
dent  can  do  nothing  for  freedom  except  by  circum 
locution  and  delay.  How  prompt  was  his  action 
against  Fremont  and  Hunter  ! ' '  Garrison  had  not 
before  him  the  information  which  proves  that  Lin 
coln  issued  the  proclamation  at  the  earliest  moment 
and  in  the  most  decisive  terms  practicable,  without 
losing  that  support  from  the  public  opinion  of  the 
North  which  was  requisite  to  making  the  act  of 
emancipation  really  effective.  As  it  was,  the  reac 
tionary  storm  which  followed  the  proclamation 
seemed  for  a  time  likely  to  overturn  the  Eepub- 
lican  majority  in  Congress,  and  to  put  back  the 
cause  of  emancipation  further  than  ever.  Yet  Gar 
rison's  impatient  criticism  is  not  to  be  blamed.  As 
Lincoln's  delay  until  public  opinion  should  be 
ready  to  accept  emancipation  was  a  part  of  his  duty 
in  his  capacity  as  a  public  servant,  so  Garrison's 
demands  for  immediate  and  extreme  action  were  a 
part  of  his  function  as  a  maker  of  that  future  public 
opinion  to  which  the  President  sagaciously  ap 
pealed  now,  as  he  had  earlier  appealed  during  the 
famous  debates  of  1858. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  year  1863  it  became  neces 
sary  to  resort  to  the  draft  to  supply  soldiery.  Gar 
rison,  as  the  foremost  of  the  non-resistant  Aboli 
tionists,  was  called  on  to  express  his  views  of  their 
duty  under  the  circumstances.  First,  he  vindicated 
for  non-resistants  the  same  exemption  from  military 
service  accorded  in  some  places  to  Quakers  ;  but  he 
insisted  that  the  right  to  claim  this  exemption  be 
longed  to  no  one  who  by  voting  became  a  part  of  a 


328          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKEISON 

government  based  ou  force.  If  a  genuine  non -re 
sistant  were  drafted,  it  was  his  duty  to  suffer  fine 
and  imprisonment,  but  he  had  no  right  to  hire  a 
substitute.  If  his  fine,  however,  were  used  to  em 
ploy  a  soldier  in  his  place,  that  was  none  of  his 
concern.  As  to  Abolitionists  who  were  not  non- 
resistants  on  principle,  but  who  refrained  from  vot 
ing  on  account  of  the  pro-slavery  clauses  in  the 
Constitution,  Garrison  declared  that  as  the  govern 
ment  was  and  must  be  on  the  side  of  liberty,  it 
should  "receive  the  sanction  and  support  of  every 
Abolitionist  [i.  <?.,  of  every  fighting  Abolitionist] 
whether  in  a  moral  or  a  military  point  of  view." 

The  new  respect  in  which  Abolitionists  were  held 
gave  Garrison  an  opportunity  to  reach  new  audi 
tors.  One  of  the  pleasautest  manifestations  of  the 
change  was  an  invitation, — the  first  of  the  kind  he 
had  ever  received, — to  address  the  Adelphic  Union 
of  Williams  College,  August  4,  1862.  At  the  ad 
dress  hardly  any  of  the  faculty  were  present,  except 
Prof.  John  Bascorn,  a  man  of  reforming  temper  and 
moral  force,  who  later  suffered  for  his  activity  in 
favor  of  prohibition,  and  who  is  alive  at  the  time 
of  this  writing  in  venerable  age.  The  very  success 
of  the  abolition  cause  made  it  more  and  more  diffi 
cult  to  keep  up  the  abolition  societies  and  papers. 
Some  Abolitionists  of  influence  believed  that  if 
Garrison  and  Wendell  Phillips  were  to  make  public 
addresses  and  to  confer  with  political  leaders,  they 
would  achieve  more  than  through  the  societies. 
Some  withheld  their  support  from  the  established 
vehicles  of  agitation  ;  and  Garrison  in  the  first  part 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT       329 

of  the  year  1862  was  urged  to  go  to  Washington, 
where  Phillips  was  received  with  marked  attention. 
Unfortunately  he  caught  a  severe  cold  in  February, 

1862,  at  an  anti-slavery  convention  at  Albany,  and 
was  unable  for  several  months  to  travel.     At  the 
May  meeting  of  the  American  Society  in  New  York, 
and  of  the  Massachusetts  Society  in  Boston,  which 
he  attended,  the  number  of  Abolitionists  present 
was  smaller  than  ever  before,  but  the  addresses  at 
tracted  large  and  enthusiastic  audiences  of  non- 
Abolitionists. 

The    carrying    into  effect  of  the   Emancipation 
Proclamation   on   the  appointed   day,    January  1, 

1863,  was  celebrated  by  Garrison  with  a  full  sense 
of  the  historic  importance  of  the  great  event.     His 
efforts  were  now  put  forth  in  favor  of  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  loyal  Border  States,  and  of  the  es 
tablishment  of  institutions  to  care  for  and  educate 
the  freedmen  ;  resolutions  on  both  subjects  were 
adopted  at  several  meetings  which   he  attended. 
The  usual  May  meeting   was  held  in  New  York, 
but  the  attendance  was  even  smaller  than  the  year 
before.      The    public    received    the    Abolitionists 
kindly.     At  a  meeting  where  Garrison  spoke,  the 
mayor  of  New  York  sat  on  the  platform,  and  when 
Garrison  entered  he  was  received  with  bursts  of  ap 
plause.     "  What  a  change  !"  he  writes,  "     . 

and  remember,  this  was  a  meeting  called  by  the 
Sixteenth    Republican    Ward    Association ! "     In 
spite  of  the  small  attendance,  it  was  felt  that  the 
society  must  continue  until  its  work  was  done. 
The  results  of  the  elections  held  during  the  year, 


330          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

on  the  whole,  ratified  the  policy  of  emancipation  ; 
and  in  the  Border  States  local  parties  in  favor  of 
immediate  emancipation  showed  vigor.  In  Mary 
land  and  Missouri  these  parties  proved  to  be  in  the 
majority  at  the  elections.  Yet  the  administration 
refused  to  encourage  them,  and  the  President  still 
argued  in  favor  of  gradual  emancipation  and  threw 
the  weight  of  his  influence  against  the  Missouri 
party.  Moreover,  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 
had  reduced  though  it  had  not  destroyed  the 
Republican  majorities,  and  even  for  the  gradual 
abolition  policy  of  the  President  it  was  still  impos 
sible  to  obtain  sufficient  political  support.  The 
American  Auti- Slavery  Society,  therefore,  which 
met  at  Philadelphia,  December  3d  and  4th,  1863, 
still  felt  that  it  had  something  to  live  for. 

The  greater  part  of  the  meeting  was  given  up  to 
reminiscences  by  the  older  members  of  the  society. 
Most  delightful  of  all  the  experiences  of  the  meet 
ing  to  Garrison  was  the  reunion  of  the  estranged 
factions  of  the  abolitionist  body.  Either  per 
sonally  or  by  letter  not  only  "Old  Organization  " 
Abolitionists  of  the  radical  school,  like  Phillips 
and  Garrison,  but  "New  Organizers,"  like  his  old 
friend  Arthur  Tappan,  politicians  grown  old  in  the 
warfare,  such  as  Giddings,  converts  from  Garri- 
sonianism,  like  Frederick  Douglass,  and  the  new 
political  Abolitionists,  like  B.  Gratz  Brown,  the 
leader  of  the  Missouri  abolition  party,  all  united  in 
the  rejoicings.  Douglass  spoke  impressively  for 
confidence  in  Lincoln,  and  Garrison  recalled  the 
name  of  Lundy  for  veneration  and  regard. 


THE  IEEEPEESSIBLE  COKPLICT       331 

The  emancipation  of  the  slaves  was  closely  con 
nected  with  the  enlistment  of  negroes  in  the  Union 
armies.  The  policy  of  utilizing  the  great  military 
force  of  the  negro  population  had  been  urged  from 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  on  principle  by  the  anti- 
slavery  men,  and  as  a  military  necessity  by  various 
generals  and  by  Simon  Cameron  when  Secretary  of 
War.  The  government  was  loath  to  arm  the 
blacks.  It  distrusted  them,  and  it  feared  to  excite 
antagonism  by  such  a  step.  Hence,  though  the 
enlistment  of  negroes  was  made  legal  in  1862,  it 
was  not  until  1863,  after  the  Emancipation  Procla 
mation  had  been  issued,  that  the  policy  was  entered 
upon  in  earnest.  Enlistment  in  the  case  of  a  slave 
naturally  carried  with  it  the  emancipation  of  the 
enlisted  man  and  of  his  family,  and  thus  had  the 
practical  effect  of  extending  military  emancipation 
into  the  Border  States.  Indeed,  military  eman 
cipation  and  the  enlistment  of  negroes  had  from  the 
first  been  associated  as  two  aspects  of  a  possible 
strategic  necessity  in  Lincoln's  mind.  Massachu 
setts  was  the  first  Northern  state  to  enlist  a  volun 
teer  regiment  of  negroes,  the  Fifty-fourth  Mas 
sachusetts.  The  colonel,  Eobert  Gould  Shaw,  and  a 
number  of  the  other  officers,  were  sous  of  Garrison's 
friends,  and  had  been  playmates  of  his  children. 
The  negro  rank  and  file  faced  slavery  if  captured  ; 
the  young  white  officers  ignominy,  a  dishonorable 
death  and  an  unmarked  grave.  The  heroism 
which  was  blithely  ready  to  meet  such  a  future  as 
well  as  the  common  perils  of  warfare  deeply  im 
pressed  Garrison  ;  and  when  his  own  son,  George 


332          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

T.  Garrison,  who  did  not  share  his  father's  non- 
resistant  views  and  who  had  been  anxious  to  enter 
the  array  after  the  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
eagerly  grasped  an  offer  of  a  commission  as  second 
lieutenant  in  the  Fifty-fifth  Massachusetts,  the 
second  regiment  of  negroes,  the  father  accepted  his 
decision  gravely  and  respectfully,  though  sadly. 

As  the  first  black  regiment,  with  its  flashing  eyes 
and  its  soldierly  march,  passed  by  on  its  way  to  the 
front,  Garrison  stood  to  watch  it  from  the  corner  of 
Wilson's  Lane,  now  Devonshire  Street,  at  a  spot 
over  which  he  had  been  dragged  by  the  mob  in 
1835,  and  within  a  few  feet  of  the  scene  of  the 
Boston  Massacre  in  1770  when  negro  blood  was 
shed.  Before  the  regiment  in  which  his  sou  was  an 
officer  was  ready  to  depart,  the  draft  riots  in  Kew 
York  and  the  an ti- negro  riots  in  Detroit  occurred. 
There  was  danger  of  disturbance  in  Boston.  The 
Garrisons  thought  it  safest  to  leave  their  house  for  a 
day  or  two  ;  and  the  soldiers,  instead  of  parading 
on  the  Common,  were  marched  straight  to  the 
transport  which  was  to  carry  them  to  Charleston. 
The  father  keenly  felt  the  lack  of  opportunity  to 
bid  his  son  farewell  and  to  give  him  his  blessing, 
and  wrote  to  tell  how  he  had  tried  to  reach  him. 
"  Multitudes,  with  myself,  were  greatly  disap 
pointed  that  the  regiment  did  not  parade  on  the 
Common,  where  we  all  expected  to  take  our  fare 
well  leave.  I  followed  you,  however,  all  the  way 
down  to  the  vessel,  hoping  to  speak  to  you  ;  but  I 
found  myself  on  the  wrong  side,  and  the  throng  was 
so  great  and  the  marching  so  continuous  that  I 


THE  IKREPBESSIBLE  CONFLICT       333 

could  not  press  niy  way  through.  After  you  were 
all  on  board,  I  went  with  a  number  of  friends  to  the 
next  wharf  below,  where  we  waited  more  than  an 
hour,  hoping  to  see  you  off  and  to  give  you  our 
parting  salute.  But  the  rain  poured  heavily  down, 
and  we  were  all  compelled  to  beat  a  retreat — keenly 
regretting  that  we  could  not,  even  from  a  distance, 
shout  farewell."  ' 

Some  choice  legends  have  gathered  about  Garri 
son's  fame  ;  one  is  that  the  name  he  bore  was  not 
his  real  one  ;  another  is  to  the  effect  that  he  repudi 
ated  this  militant  sou  on  account  of  his  own  non-re 
sistant  creed.  His  simple,  manly  words  as  given 
above  are  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  latter  charge. 
There  are  other  equally  absurd  statements  concern 
ing  him,  not  worth  refutation,  yet  curious  as  show 
ing  how  a  my  thus  develops  even  from  so  simple  and 
straightforward  a  career  as  his. 

Near  the  end  of  December,  1863,  Garrison7  s  wife, 
who  had  been  his  support  and  consolation,  his 
prudent  counselor  and  the  wise  regulator  of  his 
impulses,  was  without  warning  stricken  with 
paralysis  of  the  entire  left  side.  The  day  before, 
she  had  presented  the  appearance  of  blooming 
health,  and  had  displayed  her  usual  energy  in 
works  of  charity  by  soliciting  aid  for  the  freedmen 
among  friends.  It  would  not  have  been  strange  if 
the  activity  and  anxiety  of  her  life  had  earlier 
broken  down  even  her  strong  constitution.  The 
restrictions  put  upon  her  by  the  srnallness  and  un 
certainty  of  the  income  for  her  household  had  been 
1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  83. 


334         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEEISON 

severe  even  in  the  provision  made  for  the  ordinary 
expenses  of  her  numerous  family,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  extraordinary  disbursements  to  which  her 
husband's  position  obliged  him.  If  it  had  not  been 
for  Mrs.  Garrison's  perfect  health,  extremely 
systematic  habits,  and  severe  economy,  debt  would 
certainly  have  overwhelmed  Garrison  and  forced 
him  to  discontinue  the  Liberator,  and  greatly  to 
curtail  his  an ti- slavery  activity.  Naturally,  con 
cerned  as  she  was  with  the  detail  of  fact,  and 
careful  of  the  future,  she  was  at  times  perturbed  and 
perplexed.  Her  caution  was  useful  to  her  husband, 
sanguine  by  temperament  and  faitli ;  while  he  took 
the  load  from  her  heart  and  brought  smiles  to  her 
lips  by  his  cheer.  She  gave  some  system  to  her 
husband's  disorderly  activity  and  helped  him  to 
carry  on  his  work  in  a  businesslike  way.  In 
addition  to  all  her  labor  and  responsibility,  she  was 
beset  with  constant  anxiety  as  to  her  husband's 
safety.  The  calm  courage  which  he  showed  before 
a  mob  was  easier  than  cheerfulness  under  the 
anxiety  hanging  over  the  quiet  household  during 
his  long  and  frequent  absences.  Even  when  Garri 
son  was  at  home  this  fear  was  never  quite  gone. 
He  constantly  received  letters  of  anonymous 
menace,  and  the  passage  between  his  home  and  his 
office  did  not  always  seem  safe.  On  occasions  like 
that  of  the  Eynders  mob,  when  Garrison  deliber 
ately  faced  danger  and  even  death,  Mrs.  Garrison's 
anxiety  was  of  course  poignant.  Withal,  she  was 
devoted  to  the  cause  to  which  her  husband  had 
devoted  himself,  and  was  ready  to  offer  herself  to 


THE  IEKEPEESSIBLE  CONFLICT       335 

suffering  and  him  to  danger  rather  than  to  give  up 
the  great  work.  As  is  not  infrequently  the  case 
with  persons  who  enjoy  superabundant  health,  her 
first  illness  was  like  an  earthquake  shock,  shatter 
ing  her  frame. 

She  lived  eleven  years,  patient  and  cheerful,  de 
pendent  for  care  upon  her  husband  and  their  only 
daughter.  Her  sons  tell  of  her  once  needing  a 
handkerchief,  and  of  taking  her  skirt  in  her  teeth 
and  dragging  herself  up-stairs,  in  order  to  avoid  dis 
turbing  her  daughter,  who  was  putting  her  baby  to 
bed. 

Mrs.  Garrison's  illness  of  course  severely  taxed 
the  strength  of  Garrison,  no  longer  in  youthful 
vigor.  Toward  the  end  of  January,  however,  he 
was  once  more  able  to  attend  meetings  of  the  anti- 
slavery  societies.  The  certainty  that  slavery  would 
soon  disappear  from  American  soil  took  away  what 
had  been  the  soul  of  Abolitionism.  Was  it  still 
necessary  for  those  who  fought  in  the  cause  of  free 
dom,  never  to  be  fully  won,  to  come  out  and  be  sep 
arate  ;  or  could  they  now  act  upon  public  sentiment 
through  the  ordinary  channels  ?  Upon  this  ques 
tion  the  small  remnant  of  the  anti-slavery  organiza 
tions  was  once  more  rent  in  twain,  and  Garrison  for 
the  first  time  found  himself  in  a  conservative  mi 
nority  as  to  a  vital  point  in  the  societies  of  which 
he  had  been  the  master  spirit.  The  initial  form  of 
the  contest  was  a  skirmish  over  the  question  of  sup 
porting  Lincoln  for  reelection.  Phillips  and  others 
distrusted  his  purposes  as  to  the  treatment  of  the 
freedmen.  Lincoln  desired  to  rehabilitate  the  se- 


336          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

ceded  states,  not  as  conquered  provinces,  but  as  in 
tegral  parts  of  the  Union,  and  sought  for  elements 
out  of  which  a  representative  government  could 
grow  by  natural  processes.  All  Abolitionists  de 
sired  guarantees  that  slavery  should  not  be  insidi 
ously  reintroduced  under  some  specious  name,  and 
that  the  freedmeu  should  not  be  exposed  to  the  op 
pression  or  revenge  of  their  late  masters,  or  to  the 
enmity  of  the  "poor  whites."  Phillips  already  de 
manded  the  suffrage  for  them,  as  their  only  means  of 
defense.  Garrison  had  come  to  believe  in  the  right 
eousness  of  Lincoln's  purposes,  and  regarded  the 
support  of  him  as  obligatory  upon  Abolitionists  ; 
since  for  him  to  fail  of  reelection  would  be  in  effect 
a  condemnation  of  the  emancipation  policy.  At 
the  same  time,  he  hesitated  to  approve  his  method 
of  reconstruction.  Hence,  when  Phillips  proposed 
in  January  to  declare  that  the  a  government  was 
ready  to  sacrifice  the  honor  and  interest  of  the 
North  to  secure  a  sham  peace,"  Garrison  would 
have  said  that  the  government  was  "-hi  danger"  of 
so  doing.  He  was  unwilling  to  follow  Phillips  in 
charging  the  President  with  perfidy.  The  vote 
which  was  taken  was  a  test  of  the  strength  of  the 
new  factions  within  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  in  which  the  resolutions  were  proposed, 
and  resulted  unfavorably  to  Garrison's  views  by  a 
small  majority.  Throughout  the  year  1864,  Phillips 
kept  up  his  attack  on  Lincoln  for  his  readiness  to 
reconstruct  the  states  without  negro  suffrage.  Ex 
pressing  his  sorrow  for  Garrison's  course,  he  said  : 
"  A  million  dollars  would  have  been  a  cheap  pur- 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT       337 

chase  for  the  administration  of  the  Liberator's  ar 
ticle  on  the  presidency. "  Phillips  went  so  far  as 
to  become  a  delegate  to  the  Massachusetts  State  Re 
publican  Convention,  held  in  May,  in  order  that  he 
might  oppose  the  election  to  the  national  convention 
of  delegates  in  favor  of  Lincoln,  and  spoke  against 
resolutions  endorsing  the  President's  administra 
tion.  The  convention  swept  over  him,  and  adopted 
the  resolutions  by  acclamation.  His  bitterness  led 
him  to  the  grotesque  folly  at  the  New  England 
Anti-Slavery  Convention  of  charging  the  President 
with  "carrying  on  the  war  to  reelect  himself,  to 
conciliate  the  disloyal  white  man."  *  Phillips, 
Stephen  S.  Foster,  Abby  Kelley  Foster  and  Parker 
Pillsbury,  Garrison's  old  anti-clerical  associates, 
were  the  chief  supporters  of  the  attack  on  the  ad 
ministration.  Garrison,  with  H.  C.  Wright  and 
George  Thompson,  who  had  come  again  to  America 
in  February,  steadily  opposed  them  ;  and  when  a 
convention  of  Eadicals,  including  Phillips,  nomi 
nated  General  Fremont  at  a  convention  held  in 
Cleveland  on  May  31st,  Garrison  called  attention  to 
the  fact  that  this  nomination  had  been  made  in  the 
face  of  the  existence  not  only  of  the  war,  but  of  a 
wide-spread  "Copperhead  "  conspiracy  in  the  North, 
and  asserted  that  there  never  was  a  more  abortive  or  a 
more  ludicrous  gathering,  politically  speaking,  than 
the  Cleveland  convention.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  though  Fre'niont  accepted  the  nomination  in  a 
letter  full  of  bitter  words  against  Lincoln,  he  later 
withdrew,  his  judgment  convincing  him,  after  the 

1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  110. 


338          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

publication  of  the  Democratic  platform  in  August, 
that  only  by  the  union  of  all  factions  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  could  the  safety  of  the  country  against 
either  disunion  or  slavery  be  assured.  Of  the  in 
significant  candidacy  of  Fr6mont  Garrison  spoke 
with  contempt. 

Garrison  was  a  spectator  at  the  Republican  con 
vention  held  in  Baltimore,  on  June  7th  and  8th. 
The  nomination  was  unanimous  from  the  beginning, 
except  that  the  radical  Missouri  delegates,  dissatis 
fied  with  Lincoln's  failure  to  support  abolition  in 
the  loyal  Border  States,  voted  once  for  Grant  and 
then  changed  their  vote.  "When  the  result  was 
announced,"  Garrison  wrote,  "the  enthusiasm  was 
indescribable;  and  yet  it  was  not  comparable  with 
the  electric  outbreak  which  followed  the  adoption 
of  the  following  resolution  :  '  3.  Resolved,  That  as 
slavery  was  the  cause  and  now  constitutes  the 
strength  of  this  rebellion,  and  as  it  must  be  al 
ways  and  everywhere  hostile  to  the  principles  of 
republican  government,  justice  and  the  national 
safety  demand  its  utter  and  complete  extirpation 
from  the  soil  of  the  republic  ;  and  that  we  uphold 
and  maintain  the  acts  and  proclamations  by  which 
the  government,  in  its  own  defense,  has  aimed  a 
death-blow  at  this  gigantic  evil.  We  are  in  favor, 
furthermore,  of  such  an  amendment  to  the  Con 
stitution,  to  be  made  by  the  people  in  conformity 
with  its  provisions,  as  shall  terminate  and  forever 
prohibit  the  existence  of  slavery  within  the  limits 
or  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States.'  "  ] 

1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  113. 


THE  IKKEPKESSIBLE  CONFLICT       339 

Garrison  rejoiced,  and  might  well  rejoice,  that  he 
was  present  when  this  resolution  was  adopted.  In 
the  account  of  the  convention  which  he  published 
in  the  Liberator,  he  described  the  joyful  enthusiasm 
of  the  delegates  when  the  vote  was  taken,  and 
asked:  "Was  not  a  spectacle  like  that  rich  com 
pensation  for  more  than  thirty  years  of  universal 
personal  opprobrium,  bitter  persecution,  and  mur 
derous  outlawry  I "  As  he  watched  the  enthusiastic 
delegates  shouting  and  shaking  hands,  his  mind 
traveled  back  not  only  over  his  own  long  and  bitter 
struggle,  but  over  the  history  of  the  whole  abolition 
movement.  Not  he  alone,  but  all  who  had  braved 
contempt  and  abuse  for  so  many  years  in  the  con 
test  with  slavery  were  at  last  vindicated.  He  had 
beheld,  as  he  thought  in  still  more  solemn  mood, 
"the  vindication  of  Eternal  Truth  and  Justice.7' 

The  journey  to  Baltimore  was  the  first  Garrison 
had  made  to  that  city  since  his  imprisonment  there. 
The  old  jail  was  torn  down,  and  he  was  disappointed 
in  his  expectation  of  being  able  to  visit  the  cell  in 
.which  he  had  been  confined.  From  Baltimore  he 
went  on  to  Washington.  Lincoln  received  him 
cordially,  and  when  Garrison  told  him  how  difficult 
he  had  found  it  to  approve  the  President's  course 
until  the  publication  of  the  Emancipation  Proclama 
tion,  he  explained  the  grounds  of  his  policy  of  delay. 
It  was  at  his  suggestion,  as  he  informed  Garrison, 
that  the  resolution  in  favor  of  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  had  been  proposed  to  the  Republican 
convention.  By  the  passage  of  the  amendment, 
the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  would  be  put  beyond 


340         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

question  and  beyoud  the  possibility  of  being 
jeopardized  by  his  death  or  failure  to  be  re- 
elected. 

Even  at  this  time,  when  the  final  success  of  the 
Union  armies  seemed  certain,  and  the  policy  of 
emancipation  had  been  warmly  approved  by  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  of  the  North,  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment  failed  to  secure  the  necessary 
two-thirds  vote  in  Congress  ;  and  only  by  the  most 
strenuous  efforts  and  against  the  opposition  of 
prominent  Republicans  were  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Laws  repealed.  The  reelection  of  Lincoln,  how 
ever,  was  an  endorsement  of  his  policy  of  the 
utmost  practical  moment,  and  was  hailed  wiib 
gratification  by  Garrison  and  the  great  majority  of 
the  Abolitionists. 

At  the  end  of  the  year,  the  constant  problem  of 
maintaining  the  Liberator  came  up  with  more 
urgency  than  ever.  The  cost  of  paper  had  increased 
again.  The  Hovey  Fund  Committee,  the  majority 
of  whom  were  extreme  Abolitionists  once  called 
Garrisonian,  had  cut  off  their  subscription  for  a 
hundred  copies,  on  the  ground  that  the  paper  had 
become  a  Republican  organ.  Others  assumed  the 
burden,  some  new  friends  came  forward,  and  it 
was  resolved  to  continue  until  the  passage  of  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment  should  crown  the  long 
struggle  with  formal  and  final  success.  Garrison 
had  also  again  to  decline  an  invitation  to  merge  the 
Liberator  and  the  Standard.  He  was  determined  to 
keep  his  paper  independent  to  the  last,  in  order,  as 
he  wrote  to  Oliver  Johnson,  the  editor  of  the 


THE  IEEEPEESSIBLE  CONFLICT       341 

Standard,  to  retaiii  "  its  historic  position  aiid  moral 
prestige"  unimpaired. 

The  triumph  of  the  Northern  arms  was  rapidly 
approaching,  and  with  it  came  what  was  to  Garri 
son  the  greater  triumph  of  the  cause  to  which  he 
had  devoted  his  life.  In  both  fields,  that  of  arms 
and  that  of  morals,  each  advancing  step  was  the 
ground  of  public  rejoicing.  Hence  the  first  few 
months  of  the  year  1865  were  a  continuous  festival, 
suddenly  interrupted  by  the  murder  of  the  Presi 
dent.  On  the  31st  of  January  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  at  last  received  the  requisite  two-thirds 
majority  in  the  House  of  Eepreseutatives,  and  was 
ready  to  be  submitted  for  ratification  to  the  states. 
To  Garrison  this  event  not  only  was  glorious  in 
itself,  but  was  a  testimony  that  he  was  no  longer  a 
stranger  and  an  outcast  among  his  countrymen. 
Many  pleasant  attentions  were  shown  him.  He  was 
invited  to  deliver  an  address  on  Washington's  Birth 
day  before  the  citizens  of  his  native  town  of  New- 
buryport.  His  political  assistance  was  sought  by 
prominent  personages,  one  asking  him  to  support 
Governor  Andrew's  claims  to  a  place  in  the  Cabinet. 
He  was  recognized  as  a  political  force  by  the  ad 
ministration,  and  the  Secretary  of  War  wrote  to 
him  personally  to  explain  some  misinterpreted  pro 
ceedings. 

After  the  fall  of  Charleston,  which  took  place  on 
the  18th  of  February,  the  steps  of  the  auction  block 
in  the  old  slave  mart  of  that  city  were  sent  to 
Boston  with  other  relics,  to  be  exhibited  at  meet 
ings  held  for  the  benefit  of  the  freedmen.  From 


342         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABKISON 

these  steps  Garrison  spoke  at  the  first  of  these  meet 
ings,  on  the  9th  of  March,  eliciting  wild  applause 
and  happy  enthusiasm.  That  he  should  have  re 
joiced  to  mount  the  steps  and  to  speak  surrounded 
by  evidences  that  in  America  slavery  was  no  more, 
was  right  and  proper.  Yet  it  may  justly  cause 
some  pain  that  he  trod  on  a  captured  Confederate 
flag,  used  to  carpet  the  symbolic  rostrum.  With  his 
feelings  on  the  subjects  of  war  and  slavery  and 
secession,  and  in  the  mood  of  the  time,  this,  too, 
was  natural ;  but  a  delicate  mind  would  grieve  to 
be  guilty  of  coutumeliously  affronting  a  conquered 
and  gallant  foe.  That  flag  had  been  carried  in  one 
of  the  most  calamitously  ill-judged  of  wars  and  in 
one  of  the  most  perverse  of  causes,  but  it  had  been 
followed  by  brave  and  noble  men,  who,  however 
misguided,  gave  life  itself  as  a  proof  of  their  de 
votion  to  this,  in  their  eyes,  sacred  symbol. 

The  season  of  festivities  reached  its  culmination 
in  an  invitation  to  be  present  as  a  guest  of  the 
government  at  the  ceremony  of  raising  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  on  Fort  Suniter  on  April  14th,  the 
fourth  anniversary  of  the  surrender.  The  voyage 
was  entrancingly  calm  and  beautiful,  and  the  com 
pany  carefully  selected  and  congenial, — all,  so  Gar 
rison  tells  us,  of  one  mind  as  to  reconstruction  and 
nobody  stiff  in  his  manners.  George  Thompson  oc 
cupied  a  stateroom  with  Garrison.  On  the  day  of 
the  celebration,  the  vessels  in  Charleston  harbor 
were  dressed  with  flaunting  flags,  the  artillery  of 
the  forts  and  war-ships  thundered  their  most  solemn 
salutes,  and  the  banner  of  the  Union  floated  every- 


THE  IKKEPKES8IBLE  CONFLICT       343 

where  except  over  Sumter.  Major-General  Robert 
Anderson,  who  as  major  had  hauled  down  the  flag, 
had  the  privilege  of  raising  again  the  same  shot- 
smitten  banner.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  delivered 
the  principal  address.  On  the  fifteenth,  the  morn 
ing  on  which  Lincoln  died,  a  party  including  Gar 
rison  visited  the  tomb  of  Calhoun.  As  they  stood 
beside  the  burial-place  of  him  who  had  been  brain 
and  nerve  to  the  institution  which  Garrison  had 
spent  his  life  in  combating,  Garrison  laid  his  hand 
on  the  tombstone,  and  said  :  l  '  Down  into  a  deeper 
grave  than  this  slavery  has  gone,  and  for  it  there  is 
no  resurrection." 

To  Garrison  the  freedmen  were  of  more  interest 
than  anything  else  to  be  seen  during  his  journey ; 
and  he  took  every  opportunity  to  address  them, 
rejoicing  with  them  and  rousing  them  to  great 
excitement.  The  most  impressive  of  the  festival 
meetings  of  the  blacks  was  held  in  Charleston.  In 
the  course  of  it  a  negro,  Samuel  Dickerson  by  name, 
bringing  forward  his  little  daughters,  who  carried 
bouquets,  expressed  to  Garrison  and  his  coadjutors 
the  thanks  of  a  multitude  of  negroes  whose  families 
had  been  restored  to  them  and  whose  family  life 
had  been  made  safe  and  honorable,  so  it  was  hoped, 
by  the  instrumentality  of  the  lovers  of  freedom. 
Garrison,  accepting  the  flowers,  replied  with  much 
feeling.  Among  other  things  he  said  :  lt  God  is  my 
witness  ! — I  have  faithfully  tried,  in  the  face  of  the 
fiercest  opposition  and  under  the  most  depressing 
circumstances,  to  make  your  cause  my  cause  ;  my 
wife  and  children  your  wives  and  children,  subject 


344          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

to  the  same  outrage  and  degradation  j  myself  on  the 
same  auction-block  to  be  sold  to  the  highest 
bidder.  .  .  .  While  God  gives  me  reason  and 
strength,  I  shall  demand  for  you  everything  I  claim 
for  the  whitest  of  the  white  in  this  country. "  l  Later 
on  the  same  day,  when  he  visited  his  son  in  camp,  he 
for  the  first  time  saw  some  negro  field-hands,  and 
was  overwhelmed  at  the  spectacle  of  their  simple 
and  good-natured  but  brutally  unintelligent  faces, 
and  their  forms,  many  of  them  clad  in  sacks,  with 
bare  arms  and  legs.  For  their  condition  he  naturally 
but  unjustly  held  slavery  wholly  answerable.  How 
dread  the  responsibility  then  and  now  resting  upon 
state  and  nation  for  these  poor  creatures,  so  near  to 
ancestors  violently  snatched  from  barbarism  or 
savagery,  who  in  degrading  the  whole  life  of  the 
South  and  through  it  of  the  country,  have  brought 
the  punishment  for  their  wrongs  upon  those  who 
held  them  in  bondage.  As  the  Arago,  the  little 
vessel  on  which  Beecher,  Garrison,  and  Thompson 
embarked,  intending  to  go  on  to  Florida,  lay  at 
the  wharf  ready  to  depart,  throngs  of  freednien 
brought  flowers  in  heaps  as  gifts,  with  little  del 
icacies,  and  another  festival  was  held  on  the  wharf, 
Dickerson  again  kneeling  there  and  holding  the 
flag  over  the  heads  of  his  children  as  the  vessel 
steamed  down  the  harbor. 

The  news  of  Lincoln's  death,  received  at  Beau 
fort,    broke    off   the   journey    at    once ;    and    the 
company  turned  back,  changed  quickly  to  another 
vessel  on  the  way,  and  went  on  with  such  haste  that 
1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  148, 


THE  IBREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT       345 

there  was  only  an  hour's  coal  left  in  the  bunkers 
when  the  steamer  reached  New  York.  Intense  as 
was  the  grief  and  horror  of  the  whole  nation  in  the 
days  succeeding  Lincoln's  assassination,  there  can 
have  been  no  deeper  gloom  anywhere  than  in  that 
ship's  company,  who  had  set  out  in  such  joy  and 
were  now  sailing  back  appalled  by  what  they 
had  heard,  beyond  the  reach  of  information,  and 
tortured  by  all  kinds  of  anxiety,  not  only  as  to  the 
strength  of  the  government,  but  as  to  the  whole 
condition  of  the  country.  From  New  York  they 
silently  dispersed  to  their  homes,  relieved  of  their 
worst  fears,  but  still  overcome  with  sadness. 

In  the  anti-slavery  societies  the  question  involved 
in  the  discussions  as  to  the  propriety  of  supporting 
Lincoln  had  come  up  this  year  in  a  more  intense 
form  than  before.  Garrison  was  convinced  that  the 
nation  was  really  converted  to  a  detestation  of 
slavery.  He  was  also  sure  that  the  North  in  the 
reconstruction  of  the  Southern  states  would  insist 
on  "  guarantees  for  the  protection  of  the  freed- 
men"  ;  that  is,  would  give  them  the  suffrage, 
protect  them  by  force  of  arms,  and  withhold  from 
those  who  had  led  in  the  government  of  the  Con 
federate  states  opportunities  to  regain  control  of 
the  state  governments.  No  doubt  his  journeys  and 
his  acquaintance  with  politicians  had  some  influ 
ence  in  making  him  feel  greater  confidence  in  "the 
world's  people."  The  more  radical  Abolitionists 
could  not  share  his  faith.  Led  by  Phillips,  they 
insisted  that  the  situation  still  required  activity  on 
the  part  of  the  anti-slavery  societies  in  support  of 


346          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

negro  suffrage,  and  assailed  the  political  leaders  of 
the  day  with  uncompromising  severity.  At  the 
Massachusetts  meeting  in  January,  Garrison  de 
clared  his  belief  that  the  special  work  of  the  society 
was  done,  and  proposed  a  resolution  that  it  should 
dissolve  upon  the  ratification  of  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment.  His  resolution  was  laid  upon  the 
table,  while  the  obloquy  cast  upon  public  men  in  the 
discussion  so  grieved  and  shocked  him  that  he 
absented  himself  from  the  meeting  during  its  later 
days.  At  the  May  meeting  of  the  American 
Society  Garrison  introduced  resolutions  reaching  to 
the  heart  of  the  question,  to  the  effect  that  there 
was  no  longer  any  ground  for  Abolitionists  to  stand 
aloof  from  their  countrymen,  and  that  the  society 
should  close  its  existence  with  the  meeting  then 
in  session.  Phillips  called  upon  the  members  for 
renewed  activity  until  the  liberty  of  the  negroes 
should  be  placed  beyond  peril,  and  in  his  speeches 
referred  slightingly  to  the  philanthropic  agencies 
for  the  education  and  assistance  of  the  freedmen. 
He  and  others  spoke  as  if  discontinuing  the  society 
were  tantamount  to  abandoning  the  negro,  and  as  if 
proposing  to  do  so  were  treachery  to  the  cause  of 
freedom.  Garrison  met  the  argument  that  the 
society  was  still  needed  for  the  defense  of  the  free 
negroes  by  asserting  that  the  society  was  founded 
as  an  anti-slavery  society,  and  that  all  its  activity 
on  behalf  of  the  free  negro  had  been  but  inci 
dental  to  its  main  object.  As  an  abolition  society 
it  became  absurd,  now  that  slavery  was  abolished. 
With  statesmanlike  wisdom  he  concluded:  "It  is 


THE  IPvKEPKESSIBLE  CONFLICT       347 

ludicrous  for  us,  a  mere  handful  of  people  with  little 
means,  with  no  agents  in  the  field,  no  longer 
separate,  and  swallowed  up  in  the  great  ocean  of 
popular  feeling  against  slavery,  to  assume  that  we 
are  of  special  importance,  and  that  we  ought  not  to 
dissolve  our  association,  under  such  circumstances, 
lest  the  nation  should  go  to  ruin  ! "  l 

By  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-one  to  forty- 
eight  Garrison's  resolutions  were  rejected,  and  the 
continuation  of  the  society  was  determined  upon. 
Even  after  Garrison's  words,  the  nominating  com 
mittee  brought  in  his  name  for  the  presidency. 
When  he  declined  to  serve,  Phillips  was  chosen. 
The  society  adopted  by  a  rising  vote  a  warm 
tribute  to  Garrison,  which  he  accepted  with  grate 
ful  words,  and  thus  his  connection  with  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  which  he  had 
helped  to  form,  into  which  he  had  breathed  the 
breath  of  life,  and  of  which  he  had  been  the 
constant  inspirer  and  for  twenty -two  years  the 
president,  was  brought  to  an  end.  This  society 
had  been  the  centre  of  the  anti-slavery  agitation  of 
the  country,  the  vehicle  of  light  and  heat  on  the 
subject,  the  creator  of  sentiment,  the  fly-wheel 
which  kept  the  momentum  of  individual  zeal  from 
being  lost  and  wasted.  Its  end  was  to  Garrison's 
mind  accomplished  ;  but  as  his  sons  suggest,2  to 
many  it  was  an  end  in  itself.  The  excitement,  the 
warmth  of  comradeship  in  the  cause,  the  sense  of 
superiority  to  a  thoughtless  world  enticed  some  into 
delight  with  merely  continuing  the  form. 

lLife,  Vol.  IV,  p.  158.  'Ibid.,  p.  162. 


348         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GABBISON 

From  this  time  on  to  the  close  of  the  year,  Garri 
son  had  resting  on  his  shoulders  merely  the  contin 
uation  of  the  paper  and  the  performance  of  his 
duties  in  connection  with  the  Freedman's  Aid 
Commission,  a  consolidation  of  the  most  important 
associations  for  the  benefit  of  the  freedmen,  just 
brought  about  by  the  energy  of  J.  M.  McKim. 
For  eight  or  ten  weeks  he  enjoyed  the  unusual 
happiness  of  being  uninterruptedly  at  home  with 
nothing  but  the  regular  sequence  of  his  editorial 
duties  to  engage  his  attention.  Then  he  was 
obliged  to  begin  again  a  round  of  travel.  One 
lecture  tour  was  undertaken  to  replenish  the  almost 
empty  treasury  of  the  Liberator,  that  he  might  carry 
out  his  promise  to  continue  the  paper  to  the  end  of 
the  year.  Traveling  was  torture  to  him  because  of 
his  suffering  from  hoarseness  and  ophthalmia  ;  yet 
he  had  the  satisfaction  of  making  fifteen  hundred 
dollars — more  than  his  year's  salary — in  a  single 
month.  On  this  journey,  the  longest  of  all  his 
journeys  in  the  United  States,  he  saw  the  Missis 
sippi,  at  Quincy,  111.  His  friends,  Charles  K. 
Whipple,  Edmund  Quiucy,  and  Samuel  May,  Jr., 
undertook  the  editorial  supervision  of  the  paper 
during  his  absence. 

On  his  return,  early  in  December,  he  hoped  for 
the  few  remaining  weeks  of  the  year  to  devote  all 
his  time  to  the  Liberator,  but  was  summoned  to 
New  York  and  Philadelphia  by  imperative  busi 
ness.  While  he  was  engaged  in  the  act  of  deliver 
ing  a  lecture  in  the  latter  city,  the  final  ratification 
of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  was  announced. 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT       349 

Garrison  instantly  hastened  home  to  get  the  procla 
mation  into  the  Liberator,  and  to  celebrate  the 
official  declaration  of  the  victory  of  the  principles 
to  which  he  had  given  heart,  hope,  health,  friends, 
money,  his  all  for  more  than  thirty-five  years  of  his 
life.  He  wrote  his  valedictory  editorial  in  such 
haste  that  the  copy  was  taken  from  his  desk  a  few 
lines  at  a  time  to  be  put  in  type.  When  all  but  the 
final  paragraph  had  been  set  up  and  adjusted  in  the 
chase,  he  himself  took  up  the  composing-stick, 
finished  the  work,  and  set  his  take  in  the  space  left 
for  it.  The  group  about  the  table  watched  silently 
and  gravely  as  the  form  was  locked,  and  the  last 
number  of  the  Liberator,  bearing  the  date  of  Decem 
ber  29,  1865,  went  to  press.  The  type,  just  as  it 
was  set,  is  in  the  safe  keeping  of  the  Boston  Public 
Library. 


CHAPTEK  XIV 

LAST   YEARS 

THOUGH  Garrison  could  calmly  and  even  cheer 
fully  bring  the  Liberator  to  an  end,  his  life,  after  he 
had  bid  farewell  to  this  companion  of  thirty -five 
years,  at  first  seemed  empty ;  and  for  some  weeks 
he  mechanically  followed  his  established  routine  of 
visiting  the  office  and  clipping  the  exchanges  day 
by  day.  But  toward  the  end  of  January,  1866,  he 
slipped  on  an  icy  pavement  and  fell  heavily,  almost 
paralyzing  his  right  arm  and  shoulder  for  a  time. 
In  the  middle  of  the  year  he  fell  again  on  the  same 
side  while  running  to  catch  a  car — a  habit  of  his,  in 
conformity  with  his  general  practice  of  putting  off 
small  matters  and  sometimes  great  ones  until  the 
last  minute.  The  result  of  the  accident  was  a  pain 
ful  injury,  which  prevented  him  from  writing  for 
the  rest  of  the  year  and  put  an  end  to  the  project, 
with  which  he  had  dallied,  of  composing  a  history 
of  abolition.  His  life  passed  for  the  time  not  un 
pleasantly.  The  house  in  which  he  lived  and  to 
which  he  had  removed  from  Dix  Street,  Boston,  in 
August,  1864,  stood  in  an  agreeably  retired  situa 
tion  on  Highland  Street,  Eoxbury.  The  street  was 
twenty-five  feet  below,  at  the  foot  of  the  terraced 
grounds ;  and  from  the  upper  windows  the  view 
swept  out  over  the  harbor  and  from  the  valley  near 
at  hand  to  the  bold  and  noble  contours  of  the  en 


LAST  YEAES  351 

closing  hills.  A  fine  ledge  of  rocks  near  by  gave  the 
little  estate  of  half  an  acre  its  name,— "  Kockledge." 
This  latest  homestead  of  the  great  Abolitionist  is 
now,  appropriately,  the  St.  Monica  Home  for  sick 
colored  women  and  children. 

The  fresh  air,  the  quiet,  and  the  privacy  were 
most  beneficial  to  Garrison's  health.  He  solaced 
his  evenings  with  whist,  which  he  played  with  a 
naive  enthusiasm  more  delightful  to  a  lover  of  his 
kind  than  to  an  expert  in  the  game.  He  was  able  to 
give  more  time  than  ever  to  the  care  of  his  wife. 
His  household  was  made  glad,  also,  by  the  birth, 
on  June  14,  1866,  of  his  first  grandchild,  Agnes,  the 
daughter  of  his  son  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Jr., 
who  had  married  Ellen  Wright  at  Auburn,  N.  Y., 
September  14,  1864.  Yet,  in  spite  of  his  domestic 
happiness,  he  could  not  but  feel  anxious  for  the  fu 
ture.  He  had  little  in  the  way  of  worldly  posses 
sions,  except  the  house  in  which  he  lived.  He  was 
in  impaired  health,  perhaps  permanently  disabled, 
and  was  obliged  to  care  for  an  invalid  wife.  At 
this  anxious  time,  a  number  of  men  whose  names 
form  a  roll  of  honor  for  themselves  and  for  the  re 
cipient  of  their  bounty,  subscribed  to  a  fund  raised 
as  a  testimonial  of  their  appreciation  of  Garrison's 
services  to  the  country  and  to  the  world.  The  sig 
natures  represented  the  whole  North  and  West, 
from  Maine  to  Oregon,  and  from  Missouri  to  Min 
nesota.  They  included  names  of  men  eminent  in 
many  callings,  but  especially  the  "intellectuals" 
of  America  and  England.  The  fund,  which  owed 
its  success  to  the  assiduity  and  energy  of  the  Eev. 


352          WILLIAM  LLOYJJ  GARRISON 

Samuel  May,  Jr.,  reached  a  total  of  over  $30,000. 
It  was  tendered  to  Garrison  in  1868,  and  was  ac 
cepted  by  him  with  dignified  and  generous  grati 
tude  for  the  spirit  which  prompted  the  gift. 

In  1867,  Garrison  was  able  to  gratify  a  desire, 
cherished  for  some  years,  to  visit  England  once 
more.  His  daughter  had  married  Henry  Yillard, 
then  a  newspaper  correspondent,  in  January,  1866. 
The  Villards  had  gone  abroad,  taking  with  them 
Garrison's  youngest  son  ;  and  Mr.  Villard  was  em 
ployed  as  correspondent  from  the  French  Exposi 
tion.  Garrison  took  a  child's  delight  in  the  gay 
shops  and  beautiful  scenes  of  Paris,  and  visited  the 
Exposition  again  and  again  with  unflagging  eager 
ness.  In  England  he  was  at  once  fatigued  and 
gratified  by  a  multitude  of  addresses  and  public 
entertainments  tendered  him  as  a  representative 
of  the  movement  for  freedom  in  America.  By 
Englishmen  liberty  was  more  prized  than  union  ; 
and  Garrison  as  the  leader  in  the  cause  of  eman 
cipation  for  its  own  sake  was  in  the  eyes  of  many 
the  foremost  American.  A  public  breakfast  given 
in  London  in  his  honor  was  made  noteworthy  by 
one  of  John  Bright's  simplest  and  most  beautiful 
speeches,  and  by  the  public  acknowledgment  of 
Earl  Kussell,  best  known  to  us  as  Lord  John  Russell, 
that  as  premier  he  had  made  the  mistake  in  the 
earlier  years  of  the  war  of  misunderstanding  the 
direction  in  which  the  struggle  was  tending.  More 
impressive  and  more  welcome  still  was  an  address 
from  the  working  men  of  North  Shields.  These 
were  representatives  of  that  great  body  of  British 


LAST  YEAKS  353 

craftsmen  who,  by  their  devotion  to  the  cause  of 
liberty  when  they  were  confronted  with  starvation, 
reached  the  loftiest  moral  level  ever  attained  by 
such  a  body  of  men.  For  they  were  not  stimulated 
by  proximity  to  the  evil,  or  excited  by  conflict,  or 
urged  on  by  patriotism,  or  sustained  by  religious 
fervor,  but  afar  and  in  quiet  patiently  suffered 
misery  for  themselves,  their  wives  and  little  ones, 
in  loyalty  to  the  sublime  idea  of  freedom. 

Yet  more  delightful  to  Garrison  than  any  of  these 
public  honors  was  meeting  with  old  friends.  Among 
them  was  Mazzini,  whom  Garrison  warmly  loved  and 
deeply  venerated.  It  was  twenty-five  years  since 
they  had  met ;  and  Mazzini' s  noble  face  and  form 
now  bore  the  marks  of  thought  and  travail  and  im 
prisonment.  Garrison  was  shocked  by  his  emaci 
ated  and  broken  appearance.  Learning  that  Maz 
zini' s  health  had  been  injured  by  excessive  smoking, 
and  that  he  was  trying  to  make  a  gradual  reduction 
in  the  number  of  the  cigars  which  he  daily  con 
sumed,  Garrison  besought  him  with  friendly  frank 
ness  and  tenderness  to  "go  in  for  immediate  and 
unconditional  emancipation."  "Nothing,"  Garri 
son  writes,  ' '  could  be  more  respectful,  more  sweet, 
more  gentle  than  the  manner  in  which  he  received 
my  entreaty."  ! 

In  August  Garrison  was  present  as  a  delegate  at 
the  meeting  of  the  International  Anti -Slavery  Con 
ference  at  Paris,  lamenting  that  he  could  not  un 
derstand  the  French  and  Spanish  speakers,  and 
declaring  "his  abiding  faith  in  the  feasibility  of  a 
,lLife,  Vol.  IV,  p.  195. 


354         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

universal  language,  at  some  period  or  other. " 
After  the  conference  Garrison  went  on  a  tour 
through  the  Avestern  Alps  and  then  down  the 
Rhine.  Richard  D.  Webb,  who  was  his  traveling 
companion  for  three  weeks,  gives  an  interesting  im 
pression  of  him  at  this  time  :  "  He  is  the  most  de 
lightful  man  I  have  ever  known — magnanimous, 
generous,  considerate,  and  as  far  as  I  can  see,  every 
way  morally  excellent.  I  can  perceive  that  he  has 
large  faith,  is  very  credulous,  is  not  deeply  read, 
and  has  little  of  the  curiosity  or  thirst  for  knowl 
edge  which  educated  people  are  prone  to.  But, 
take  him  for  all  in  all,  I  know  no  such  other  man."  l 
Soon  after  his  return  to  America,  he  was  invited 
to  write  for  the  New  York  Independent.  This  bril 
liant  journal,  conducted  by  orthodox  Congregation- 
alists,  had  an  evangelical  trend,  but  was  edited  with 
broad  liberality  and  not  as  a  denominational  organ. 
Though  it  had  long  supported  the  auti -slavery  move 
ment,  it  was  opposed  to  all  forms  of  "  come-outer- 
ism"  ;  but  with  the  abolition  of  slavery  accom 
plished,  and  with  the  new  feeling  of  the  North  as  to 
Southern  conditions,  Garrison  was  a  welcome  con 
tributor.  The  articles  were  signed,  and  individu 
ality  was  encouraged  in  the  contributors,  who  made 
up  a  distinguished  company.  Among  the  clerical 
writers  were  Howard  Crosby,  Philip  Schaff,  Horace 
Bushuell,  Washington  Gladden,  and  Theodore  L. 
Cuyler;  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps,  Susan  Coolidge, 
and  J.  T.  Trowbridge  contributed  stories  ;  Thomas 
Weutworth  Higginson  and  Charles  Dudley  Warner 
*Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  232  n. 


LAST  YEARS  365 

essays  of  a  distinctly  literary  type  j  Lucy  Larcom 
and  "H.  H."  verse;  Charles  Kiugsley  and  "  Pere 
Hyacinthe '  •  foreign  correspondence  ;  and  a  great 
variety  of  less  frequent  contributors  spiced  the 
paper  with  occasional  extremism,  among  them  the 
Rev.  C.  G.  Finney  and  Garrison  himself.  Garrison 
accepted  the  invitation  with  pleasure,  and  wrote 
pretty  frequently  for  five  years,  from  1868  to  1872, 
and  intermittently  for  three  years  longer. 

The  first  subject  which  occupied  his  pen  was 
the  reconstruction  of  the  Southern  states.  It  will 
be  remembered  that,  although  Garrison  would  not 
join  in  condemning  Lincoln  when  Phillips  called  on 
the  anti-slavery  societies  to  reprobate  the  Presi 
dent's  policy  with  reference  to  the  readmission  of 
the  seceded  states,  he  still  expressed  disapproval  of 
any  plan  of  reconstruction  which  did  not  recognize 
the  negro  as  free  and  equal ;  that  is,  as  entitled  to  the 
suffrage  and  to  federal  protection  in  the  exercise  of 
it.  No  doubt  he  would  have  been  a  vigorous  op 
ponent  of  the  presidential  policy  if  Lincoln  had 
lived  to  carry  it  out ;  and  what  he  would  not  have 
tolerated  in  Lincoln  he  abominated  in  Johnson. 
All  of  Johnson's  obvious  faults  were  peculiarly 
hateful  to  Garrison, — his  self-assertion,  his  trucu- 
lence,  his  drinking  habits ; — while  his  patriotism, 
hard  sense,  and  executive  force  were  not  qualities 
which  the  reformer  appreciated.  As  it  happened, 
Garrison  was  in  Washington  visiting  his  daughter, 
Mrs.  Villard,  on  the  anniversary  of  Washington's 
birthday,  in  1866,  when  Johnson  first  violently  de 
nounced  his  congressional  opponents  in  a  public  ad- 


356          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKRISON 

dress.  To  a  man  of  Garrison's  temper  and  ante* 
cedents,  Johnson  could  be  nothing  but  "  the  recre 
ant  President,"  while  of  the  gratification  of  "  seces 
sionists  and  copperheads"  over  Johnson's  speech 
he  wrote  :  "I  am  sure  the  bottomless  pit  is  equally 
jubilant." 

Garrison  early  uttered  a  warning  against  the  giv 
ing  up  of  peace  principles  by  the  Abolitionists, 
which  he  believed  would  diminish  the  moral  power 
of  the  abolition  movement.  Yet  the  congressional 
method  of  reconstruction,  which  he  now  advocated, 
involved  the  treatment  of  the  Southern  states 
as  conquered,  and  the  establishment  in  them,  or  in 
most  of  them,  of  negro  rule  by  means  of  the  military 
forces  of  the  United  States.  It  is  incredible  that 
without  the  experience  of  the  war  he  himself,  who 
had  proclaimed  that  he  had  no  weapons  against  the 
Southern  slaveholders  except  the  truth  of  God,  who 
blamed  Lovejoy  and  the  free  state  settlers  of  Kan 
sas  and  John  Brown  for  taking  up  carnal  weapons, 
should  have  sanctioned  the  control  of  the  South 
by  force  of  arms.  The  principles  which  led  him 
to  urge  peaceful  dismission  of  the  Southern  states 
before  the  war,  it  would  seem,  would  have  led 
him  to  believe  that  a  naturally  formed  economic 
order  alone  could  bring  a  stable  government  into  ex 
istence  in  them  afterward.  So  bitter  were  his  feel 
ings  that  he  supported  the  impeachment  of  Johnson, 
declaring  that  the  mere  words  in  which  he  spoke  of 
Congress  were  of  themselves  sufficient  to  justify  his 
removal  from  office.  He  was  grievously  disap 
pointed  when  the  impeachment  proceedings  failed, 


LAST  YEAES  367 

and  never  forgave  the  seven  senators  who  sacrificed 
their  political  future  to  their  sense  of  justice  and 
right.  Senator  Fessenden  of  Maine,  in  particular, 
stood  high  on  his  black  list. 

Garrison  later  attacked  Greeley's  candidature  for 
the  Presidency  against  Grant,  calling  Greeley  "the 
worst  of  all  counselors,  the  most  unsteady  of  all 
leaders,  the  most  pliant  of  all  compromisers  in  times 
of  great  public  emergency."  In  effect,  Garrison 
was  so  strong  in  his  support  of  the  Republican 
party  after  the  war  that  a  misguided  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  legislature  wrote  to  him  in  1874,  dur 
ing  the  senatorial  deadlock  after  the  death  of 
Charles  Sunmer,  and  asked  whether  Garrison  would 
accept  the  senatorship.  The  reply  was  of  course  a 
decisive  rejection  of  the  project. 

In  one  respect  Garrison's  views  were  opposed  to 
those  of  the  Republican  party  of  the  time  : — he  was 
now  a  free  trader,  in  the  strictest  sense  and  on  the 
broadest  principles.  In  1869  he  became  a  vice-presi 
dent  of  the  American  Free  Trade  League  and  was 
active  in  the  formation  of  a  Revenue  Reform  League 
in  Boston, — an  organization  in  favor  of  a  return  to  a 
specie  standard  of  value,  of  the  merit  system  in  the 
civil  service,  and  of  a  tariff  for  revenue  only. 
Among  the  striking  paragraphs  in  his  speech  on 
the  occasion  of  the  establishment  of  the  Revenue 
Reform  League,  two  are  particularly  noteworthy. 
Nowhere  else  is  the  faith  of  the  political  individual 
ist  as  to  governmental  regulation  of  industrial  con 
ditions  more  dogmatically  and  clearly  stated  : 

"The  cause  of  human  liberty  covers  and  includes 


358         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARKISON 

all  possible  forms  of  human  industry,  and  best  de 
termines  how  the  productions  thereof  may  be  ex 
changed  at  home  and  abroad  to  mutual  advantage. 
Though  never  handling  a  tool,  nor  manufacturing  a 
bale  of  cotton  or  wool,  nor  selling  a  yard  of  cloth  or 
a  pound  of  sugar,  he  is  the  most  sagacious  political 
economist  who  contends  for  the  highest  justice,  the 
most  far-reaching  equality,  a  close  adherence  to 
natural  laws,  and  the  removal  of  all  those  restric 
tions  which  foster  national  pride  and  selfishness. 
The  mysteries  of  government  are  only  the  juggles 
of  usurpers  and  demagogues.  There  is  nothing  in 
tricate  in  freedom,  free  labor,  free  institutions,  the 
law  of  interchange,  the  measure  of  reciprocity.  It 
is  the  legerdemain  of  class  legislation,  disregarding 
the  common  interests  of  the  people,  that  creates 
confusion,  sophisticates  the  judgment,  and  dazzles 
to  betray.  The  law  of  gravitation  needs  no  legisla 
tive  props  or  safeguards  to  make  its  operation  more 
effective  or  more  beneficent.  .  .  . 

"  It  is  to  be  supposed — other  things  being  equal 
— that  those  whose  lives  are  devoted  to  business 
affairs  and  financial  matters  will  have  a  clearer 
perception  of  what  concerns  their  interests  than 
those  whose  pursuits  are  simply  professional  or 
philanthropic.  Other  things  being  equal,  I  say- 
that  is  a  very  important  qualification  !  Alas  !  they 
are  often  most  unequal,  because  of  a  profligate  dis 
regard  of  principle  ;  and  then  follow  incongruity, 
entanglement,  loss  of  vision,  impaired  judgment, 
desperate  expedients,  calamitous  results.  This  was 
strikingly  illustrated  in  the  insane  conduct  of  the 


LAST  YEAES  359 

business  men  of  the  nation,  of  all  classes,  in  burning 
incense  and  servilely  bowing  the  knee  to  the  South 
ern  Moloch  for  a  period  of  threescore  years  and 
ten,  animated  by  the  belief  that  it  was  a  paying 
investment !  What  came  of  it,  we  have  all  had 
bitter  occasion  to  know."  l 

Garrison  declared  ' '  protection  of  American 
labor"  to  mean  ''restriction  and  taxation  of  that 
labor."  He  avowed  himself  "  a  radical  free  trader, 
even  to  the  extent  of  desiring  the  abolition  of  all 
custom-houses,  as  now  constituted,  throughout  the 
world." — "  Is  it  not  ludicrous  to  read  what  piteous 
calls  are  made  for  the  protection  of  the  strong 
against  the  weak,  of  the  intelligent  against  the 
ignorant,  of  the  well-fed  against  the  half-starving, 
of  our  free  republican  nation  against  the  effete 
governments  of  the  Old  World,  in  all  that  relates 
to  the  welfare  of  the  people?  .  .  .  Must  we 
guard  our  ports  against  the  free  importation  of 
hemp,  iron,  broadcloth,  silk,  coal,  etc.,  etc.,  as 
though  it  were  a  question  of  quarantine  for  the 
smallpox  or  the  Asiatic  cholera  ?  "  2 

The  same  individualistic  philosophy  dictated 
Garrison's  reply  to  appeals  for  aid  in  industrial 
reform.  He  saw  many  evils  in  the  social  constitu 
tion,  but  no  radical  wrong,  like  slavery,  in  the  in 
dustrial  regime.  The  ''toiling  masses,"  whom  a 
correspondent  summoned  him  to  aid,  were  in  his 
view  but  the  American  people,  who  could  complain 
of  nothing  in  the  organization  of  society  for  which 
they  were  not  themselves  responsible,  and  which 

1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  262,  263.  » Ibid.,  p.  265. 


360         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

their  collective  will  could  not  easily  correct.  i '  You 
express  the  conviction  that  the  present  relation  of 
capital  to  labor  is  *  hastening  the  nation  to  its  ruin,' 
and  that  if  some  remedy  is  not  applied,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  'how  a  bloody  straggle  is  to  be  prevented/ 
I  entertain  no  such  fears.  Oar  danger  lies  in 
sensual  indulgence,  in  a  licentious  perversion  of 
liberty,  in  the  prevalence  of  intemperance,  and  in 
whatever  tends  to  the  demoralization  of  the  people."  l 

There  were  no  aspects  of  government  and  social 
order  which  interested  him  deeply  unless  he  could 
view  them  as  moral  questions.  Hence  he  gave  his 
whole  strength  to  opposing  the  military  spirit  prev 
alent  after  the  war.  He  joined  others  who  ab 
horred  militarism  in  seeking  to  keep  compulsory 
drill  out  of  the  Massachusetts  public  schools.  His 
sous 2  tell  how  a  young  Japanese,  who  had  been  sent 
by  his  government  to  this  country  to  prepare  for 
the  military  profession,  and  who  had  been  struck  by 
Charles  Snmuer's  address  on  "The  True  Grandeur 
of  Nations,"  was  so  desirous  of  listening  to  Garri 
son's  words  on  the  subject  that  he  was  brought  to 
Garrison's  house  by  two  young  women,  fellow 
students  with  the  Japanese  youth  at  Boston  Uni 
versity.  The  young  man  went  away  convinced, 
returned  to  Japan,  informed  his  government  that 
he  must  renounce  the  career  of  a  soldier,  was  im 
prisoned,  and  when  released  was  placed  in  a 
petty  position  with  scanty  pay,  but  remained 
steadfast. 

Garrison  supported  prohibition  on  principle,  as 

1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  249.  *  Ibid.,  p.  247. 


LAST  YEARS  361 

be  had  attacked  slavery.  A  prohibitory  law, 
passed  in  Massachusetts  iii  1852,  was  repealed  iu 
1867,  was  reenacted  in  1869,  aiid  was  the  football 
of  politics  for  several  years  afterward  until  its 
repeal  in  1875.  In  1871  a  local  option  law  was 
passed  in  the  state.  Garrison's  contention  through 
out  was  that  the  traffic  in  intoxicating  liquors  is  so 
essentially  sinful  that  the  state  has  no  right  to 
sanction  it  by  license  or  to  attempt  to  regulate  it 
as  something  merely  liable  to  abuse,  but  if  prohi 
bition  is  impossible  and  ineffective,  is  bound  simply 
to  let  it  alone  as  an  unclean  thing.  His  vote  for  no- 
license  at  the  local  option  election  in  1871  was  the 
only  vote  he  had  cast  since  that  for  Amasa  Walker 
in  1834.  At  the  same  time  he  opposed  the  establish 
ment  of  a  Prohibition  party.  He  believed  that 
making  a  purely  moral  question  a  strictly  party 
issue  is  likely  to  weaken  the  moral  sentiment  by 
adulterating  it  with  the  secondary  considerations 
necessary  to  win  votes  ;  and  as  he  did  not  see 
enthusiasm  enough  in  the  Republican  and  Demo 
cratic  parties  to  make  them  effective  antagonists  of 
each  other,  he  did  not  believe  that  anything  would 
be  gained  by  multiplying  issues. 

His  views  on  woman  suffrage  were  equally  un 
compromising.  The  suffrage  was  in  his  opinion  a 
natural  right,  and  by  withholding  it  the  states  were 
guilty  of  taxation  without  representation.  After 
the  war  he  gave  more  energy  to  this  question  than 
to  any  other.  The  exposure  of  a  winter  journey  to 
a  suffrage  convention  in  Vermont  early  in  1870  is 
believed  by  his  sons  to  have  been  the  cause  of  the 


362          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

illness  from  which  dates  his  continuous  decline  until 
his  death  nine  years  later. 

Certain  instances  of  the  regulation  of  prostitution 
by  law  were  attacked  by  him  on  the  same  ground 
as  the  legalizing  of  slavery  and  the  licensing  of  the 
liquor  traffic  ;  namely,  that  the  law  has  no  right  to 
give  its  sanction  by  regulation  to  that  "  from  which 
flows  more  of  evil  than  good,"  much  less  to  that 
which  is  itself  a  sin.  In  1871  he  welcomed  the 
agitation  then  begun  in  England  by  Mrs.  Josephine 
E.  Butler  against  the  Contagious  Diseases  Acts, 
measures  intended  for  the  license  and  regulation 
of  prostitution  in  garrison  towns  in  Great  Britain. 
In  1873  he  supported  Dr.  W.  G.  Eliot  in  his  assault 
on  the  licensing  of  prostitution  in  St.  Louis.  At 
intervals  during  the  years  of  arduous  struggle  be 
fore  either  of  these  movements  reached  success,  he 
wrote  and  spoke  several  times  in  favor  of  them. 

Many  other  reforms  engaged  his  attention.  He 
supported  Mr.  Bergh  and  the  Society  for  the  Pre 
vention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  and  opposed  corporal 
punishment  in  the  public  schools.  He  attacked 
American  atrocities  in  the  Indian  wars.  He  urged 
the  adoption  of  phonotypic  printing  as  an  aid  in  the 
teaching  of  reading.  He  sustained  the  contention  of 
Eoman  Catholics  that  reading  the  Bible  in  the  pub 
lic  schools  was  an  infringement  of  religious  freedom. 
He  suggested  that  pulpit  dulness  would  be  over 
come  if  the  clergy  would  give  up  preaching  from 
texts  and  devote  their  attention  to  the  moral  ques 
tions  of  their  own  day.  In  general  he  assailed  the 
faults  of  his  time  rather  than  showed  the  better 


LAST  YEARS  363 

way.  He  condemned  international  boat  races,  and 
by  implication  all  athletic  contests  involving  in 
tense  strain  and  expense,  and  magnifying  athletic 
achievements  out  of  proportion  to  intellectual  ones. 
He  reprobated  the  snobbishness  of  American  tour 
ists  abroad.  Many  of  his  articles  were  corrections 
of  what  he  regarded  as  "  a  fruitful  source  of  public 
demoralization  .  .  .  the  indiscriminate  lauda 
tion  bestowed  after  their  removal  by  death  upon 
men  who  have  occupied  high  and  responsible 
stations,"  1  without  due  regard  to  the  moral  qualities 
of  their  actions.  To  praise  unworthy  men  was  in 
his  view  to  sin  against  youth.  In  this  spirit  he 
criticized  Henry  Wilson's  History  of  the  Rise  and  Fall 
of  the  Slave  Power  for  its  indiscriminate  commenda 
tion  of  reformers,  especially  of  "sectarians." 
Bishop  Hopkins  of  Vermont,  that  man  of  pictur 
esque,  many-sided  cleverness, — composer,  poet, 
historian,  architect,  essayist,  lawyer,  ecclesiastic, 
pedagogue,  ritualist,  and  defender  of  slavery  ; 
George  Peabody,  the  philanthropist,  who  spoke  too 
favorably  of  the  Southern  whites  and  never  showed 
sympathy  for  the  Southern  blacks  ;  Millard  Fill- 
more,  the  President  who  signed  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  and  who  after  his  death  was  eulogized  by  the 
legislature  of  Massachusetts,  were  in  the  company 
of  those  against  whose  posthumous  glory  he  raised 
a  protest.  The  same  temper  led  him  to  oppose  the 
appeal  for  subscriptions  in  aid  of  the  college  of 
which  General  Robert  E.  Lee  became  president. 
Garrison  would  not  trust  the  ' '  rebel  leader ' '  or 

1  Independent,  April  23,  1874. 


364          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

approve  his  white  man's  college.  He  attacked  the 
Johii  Quincy  Adams  of  the  day  as  degenerate  from 
his  great  ancestor  in  connecting  himself  with  the 
Democratic  party  and  taking  the  stump  in  South 
Carolina.  Everywhere  Garrison  strove  to  be  an 
antidote  to  American  complacency.  In  an  article 
published  in  the  number  of  the  Independent  follow 
ing  July  4th  of  the  centennial  year,  when  the  air 
was  full  of  rejoicing,  when  the  country  looked  back 
in  wonder  over  its  progress  and  glory,  he  cited  the 
shames  of  our  history  : — the  slaveholding  of  those 
who  founded  the  nation  ;  the  continuance  of  the 
slaveholding  spirit  prompting  white  men  of  all 
regions  and  parties  to  deal  iniquitously  with  the 
negroes;  the  injustice  of  the  war  with  Mexico,  of 
the  Indian  policy,  of  refusing  political  rights  to 
women.  It  is  noteworthj^  that  he  says  nothing  of 
the  disgraces  of  Grant's  administration,  just  then 
become  public. — "Before  God,  is  this  a  time  for 
special  jubilation?  If  we  rejoice  at  all,  let  it  be 
with  contrite  hearts  that  we  have  not  been  utterly 
consumed."  l 

On  the  other  hand,  as  Garrison  advanced  in 
years,  he  again  and  again  uttered  words  of  p raise 
and  farewell  to  those  who  like  him  had  engaged  in 
the  struggle  against  slavery,  and  who  had  gone  to 
the  grave  before  him.  He  wrote  for  the  press 
appreciations  of  such  public  men  as  Gerrit  Smith, 
Henry  Wilson,  and  Charles  Sumner,  in  which  he 
strove  to  characterize  them  with  scrupulous  ac 
curacy,  and  to  estimate  their  contribution  to  the 
1  Independent,  July  6,  1876. 


LAST  YEAKS  365 

weal  of  mankind  with  exactness  as  judged  from  the 
loftiest  moral  standpoint,  and  yet  to  commend  them 
with  warmth  for  all  the  good  they  had  wrought. 
At  the  funerals  of  many  Abolitionists  he  spoke  in 
the  same  spirit  at  once  of  strict  justice  and  of  heart 
felt  gratitude  for  their  service  as  members  of  that 
small  minority  who  by  their  virtue  save  the  state 
against  its  will. 

Among  those  at  whose  funeral  Garrison  spoke 
was  Henry  C.  Wright,  who  died  near  Providence, 
Rhode  Island,  in  August,  1870.  He  had  no  home, 
and  upon  Garrison  and  Wendell  Phillips  fell  the 
responsibility  of  choosing  a  place  of  burial  for  him. 
A  curious  and  very  circumstantial  narrative  tells  how 
a  healing  medium,  whom  Garrison  consulted  for  his 
own  illness,  with  no  thoughts  of  Wright,  was  "  con 
trolled"  by  Wright's  spirit,  who  told  Garrison  of  a 
single  triangular  burial  lot  marked  by  a  tree  in  a 
particular  part  of  a  certain  cemetery  near  Provi 
dence,  which  would  be  satisfactory.  The  lot  at  first 
could  not  be  found  ;  another  medium  at  Providence 
was  made  the  vehicle  of  a  communication  insisting 
that  it  was  in  the  cemetery,  and  at  last,  apparently 
by  accident,  the  lot  was  discovered  just  where  it 
had  been  revealed  to  be.1 

So  many  funeral  services  was  Garrison  called 
on  to  perform  that  he  may  fairly  be  denominated, 
as  his  sons  call  him,  "  minister  at  large  of  the 
anti-slavery  host."  In  spite  of  his  an ti- clerical 
ism,  there  was  in  the  nature  of  the  man  a  cer 
tain  type  of  ecclesiastic.  His  associates,  his  op- 

1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  253  n. 


366          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

pODents,  and  his  point  of  view  during  the  most 
active  part  of  his  life  were  theological.  He  judged 
all  things  from  a  priori  moral  standards,  and  was 
led  on  inevitably  into  the  consideration  of  cases  of 
conscience,  and  of  the  bases  of  morals  and  faith. 
His  emotions,  though  they  flowed  in  deep  and 
narrow  channels,  were  stronger  than  his  powers  of 
analysis.  He  was  an  exhorter ;  and  he  had  the 
sense  of  the  dramatic  and  symbolic  in  conduct  and 
speech  which  are  essential  parts  of  the  successful 
clergyman's  equipment.  The  pastoral  office  is  so 
necessary  to  mankind,  especially  in  giving  fit  forms 
to  the  public  interest  and  sympathy  at  the  crisis  of 
death,  that  it  is  no  wonder  the  "  come- outers,"  who 
were  all  unchurched,  should  have  turned  to  Garri 
son  and  Phillips  as  informal  pastors.  Thus  it  fell 
to  Garrison  to  bid  farewell  to  the  devoted  Qua 
keress,  Sarah  Grimke,  who  left  her  Southern  home 
and  suffered  the  painful  experiences  of  the  platform 
in  the  days  when  a  woman  who  appeared  on  it  was 
regarded  with  horror  ;  to  his  gifted  fellow  lecturer, 
C.  C.  Burleigh  ;  and  to  many  more  of  the  laborers 
in  the  anti- slavery  cause. 

His  words  beside  their  graves  expressed  implicit 
faith  in  a  future  reunion.  He  wrote  to  a  friend  : 
"  Our  old  co-workers  are  fast  disappearing  from 
this  earthly  stage,  and,  in  accordance  with  the  laws 
of  mortality,  we  must  follow  them  at  no  distant 
day.  How  unspeakably  pleasant  it  will  be  to  greet 
them,  and  to  be  greeted  by  them,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  line  !  The  longer  I  live,  the  longer  I  desire 
to  live,  and  the  more  I  see  the  desirableness  of  living ; 


LAST  YEARS  367 

yet  certainly  not  in  this  frail  body,  but  just  as  it 
shall  please  the  dear  Father  of  us  all.  '  It  is  sown 
a  natural  body  ;  it  is  raised  a  spiritual  body.  It  is 
sown  in  corruption ;  it  is  raised  in  incorruption. 
It  is  sown  in  dishonor  ;  it  is  raised  in  glory.  It  is 
sown  in  weakness ;  it  is  raised  in  power.'  What  a 
blessed  exchange,  and  how  magnificent ! "  ' 

On  January  28,  1876,  Mrs.  Garrison  died  from 
the  effects  of  a  sudden  and  severe  attack  of  pneu 
monia.  In  Garrison's  own  enfeebled  condition  the 
strain  of  her  illness  and  the  shock  of  her  death 
prostrated  him  so  completely  that  he  was  not  able 
to  attend  the  funeral,  and  seemed  likely  to  follow 
his  wife  to  the  grave  in  a  few  weeks.  Though  he 
was  well  enough  to  visit  the  Progressive  Friends' 
meeting  at  Longwood,  Pa.,  and  the  Centennial 
Exhibition  in  June,  he  was  very  infirm  all  the 
year.  The  winter  was  a  trying  one  for  him,  and 
the  loss,  in  May,  1877,  of  his  daughter-in-law,  Lucy 
McKim,  the  wife  of  his  son  Wendell  Phillips 
Garrison  and  the  daughter  of  his  old  friend  and 
anti-slavery  associate  J.  Miller  McKim,  shocked 
and  weakened  him.  By  the  advice  of  his  physician 
he  went  on  a  journey  to  England,  where,  though 
his  condition  forbade  large  formal  assemblies  in  his 
honor,  he  was  received  with  abundant  and  agree 
able  private  hospitality.  He  spoke  in  public  on  a 
few  occasions,  the  most  important  being  the  annual 
conference  of  the  associations  for  the  repeal  of  the 
Contagious  Diseases  Acts.  In  his  address  he  con 
gratulated  the  members  of  the  associations  that  for 

1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  p.  252. 


368          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARKISON 

their  souls'  welfare  they  Lad  taken  hold  of  a 
righteous  but  undeservedly  unpopular  cause.  "  As 
for  me,  I  think  I  should  not  know  how  to  take  part 
in  a  popular  movement — it  would  seem  so  weak 
ening,  so  enervating.  Everybody  is  there,  and 
there  is  nothing  to  be  done  excepting  to  shout." 
In  England  Garrison  took  his  last  farewell  of  his 
more  than  brother,  George  Thompson,  now  old,  poor, 
and  paralytic.  The  excitement  of  Garrison's  visit 
restored  to  Thompson  for  a  time  his  full  power  of 
articulate  speech,  which  had  been  much  impaired, 
and  the  two  men,  who  had  striven  for  humanity  and 
were  now  near  the  grave,  spent  a  time  of  sad  happi 
ness  in  each  other's  company.  As  the  moment  of 
parting  came,  the  more  afflicted  sobbed  on  Garri 
son's  shoulder,  and  then  sat  wistfully  watching  him 
disappear  from  his  sight.  The  English  journey 
brought  Garrison  a  gleam  of  renewed  energy  and 
spirit,  though  no  healing  of  his  profound  malady. 
During  the  brief  remainder  of  Garrison's  life- 
after  his  return,  his  mind  was  still  engaged  with 
public  questions.  The  end  of  reconstruction  had 
come ;  and  when  President  Hayes  announced  his 
policy  of  withdrawing  the  United  States  troops 
from  the  support  of  the  wretched  pretenses  of 
governments  in  the  few  states  in  which  military 
forces  were  still  retained,  Garrison  wrote  with  old- 
time  intensity  against  the  withdrawal.  The  idea  of 
reestablishing  the  tyranny  of  the  rebel  and  the  afore 
time  slaveholder  over  the  unfortunate  freedmen 
shocked  him.  No  other  question  seemed  to  him 
worthy  of  being  made  a  political  issue,  as  he  wrote 


LAST  YEARS  369 

to  "Wendell  Phillips,  who  had  joined  the  Green 
back-Labor  party  and  was  supporting  General 
Benjamin  F.  Butler.  "  While  the  freedmen  at  the 
South  are,  on  the  '  Mississippi  plan '  and  by  the 
1  shotgun  policy,'  deprived  of  their  rights  as  Ameri 
can  citizens,  and  no  protection  is  extended  them 
by  the  Federal  government,  .  .  .  the  old  anti- 
slavery  issue  is  still  before  the  country."  Hence, 
as  he  expressly  declared,  the  "  l  bloody  shirt,'  "  an 
4 '  awful  symbol  (yet  but  faintly  expressive)  of  the 
gory  tragedies  that  have  been  performed  at  the 
sacrifice  of  a  hecatomb  of  loyal  white  and  colored 
victims,"  l  must  be  used  to  rally  the  Republican 
party  once  more. 

In  the  very  last  year  of  his  life  Garrison  was 
moved  to  write  a  protest  against  the  action  of 
James  G.  Blaine  in  supporting  the  bill  to  restrict 
Chinese  immigration.  Garrison  ardently  defended 
the  character  of  the  Chinese  from  the  aspersions 
cast  upon  it.  But  the  main  contention  of  his  argu 
ment  is  that  the  United  States  ought  to  remain 
freely  open  to  all  immigration.  He  inveighed 
against  the  spirit  of  caste  and  the  folly  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  self-conceit.  The  majority  of  Chinese  were 
worthy  and  valuable  immigrants ;  and  if  some 
were  not,  it  was  our  duty  to  raise  them  to  our 
level. 

To  the  end  of  his  life,  he  kept  up  his  interest  in 
woman  suffrage,  and  did  all  in  his  power  with  the 
same  will  as  of  old  for  every  reform  that  seemed  to 
him  worthy.  His  last  published  utterances  dealt 

1  Life,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  293,  295. 


370         WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

with  the  exodus  of  some  thousands  of  negroes  from 
Louisiana  and  Mississippi  in  search  of  better  condi 
tions  than  at  home.  Garrison  constituted  himself 
treasurer  of  a  relief  fund  for  these  unfortunate  be 
ings,  and  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Boston  Traveler,  urg 
ing  that  the  exodus  was  but  the  symptom  of  a  grave 
disease,  and  that  the  millions  of  negroes  still  abid 
ing  in  the  states  of  the  South  should  be  reinstated 
and  protected  in  their  rights,  political  and  indus 
trial,  by  the  power  of  the  national  government. 

Yielding  to  the  persuasions  of  his  daughter,  Mrs. 
Villard,  who  visited  him  in  the  spring  of  1879,  and 
saw  how  ill  he  was,  he  returned  with  her  to  Kew 
York  to  be  cared  for  at  her  borne.  The  disease,  an 
affection  of  the  kidneys,  had  goue  too  far  for  cure. 
On  May  10th  he  took  to  his  bed,  from  which  he  did 
not  rise  again.  Two  weeks  later  his  children  gath 
ered  about  him  and  in  his  last  hours  of  conscious 
ness  sang  to  him  his  favorite  hymns,  —  "Amster 
dam,"  "  Christmas,"  "  Lenox."  Though  he  could 
not  speak,  he  took  part  by  beating  the  time  with 
foot  and  hand.  He  died  on  May  24,  1879.  Fu 
neral  services,  at  which  Wendell  Phillips  made  an 
impressive  and  affectionate  address,  were  held  in  the 
church  of  the  First  Religious  Society  in  Eoxbury, 
and  he  was  buried  in  Forest  Hills  Cemetery.  His 
body  lies  in  a  fair  spot  in  this  beautiful  resting- 
place  of  the  dead,  now  a  part  of  the  city  where  he 
lived  and  labored.  His  grave,  covered  by  a  stone 
eloquent  in  its  simplicity,  is  a  place  of  pilgrimage, 
and  his  memory  an  inspiration. 


CHAPTEE  XV 

THE   SUMMING  UP — THE  OUTCOME 

WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON  peacefully  closed  his 
stirring  career  a  little  more  than  thirty  years  ago. 
Before  he  died  he  doubtless  saw  that  the  final  issue 
of  some  things  for  which  he  had  striven  was  not 
likely  to  prove  satisfactory  according  to  the  stand 
ards  he  had  set.  Equal  suffrage  for  men  and 
women  is  the  only  cause  that  he  advocated  which 
will  probably  in  the  course  of  time  have  complete 
realization.  It  is  pertinent  in  these  closing  pages 
to  contrast  the  ideas  he  cherished  with  the  results 
actually  achieved. 

If  the  foregoing  chapters  have  hit  the  truth,  the 
history  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  slavery  in  this  country 
is  not  with  any  completeness  unfolded  in  a  narrative 
of  the  greatest  agitator  against  it.  We  may  go  a 
little  further  and  say,  not  without  hazard  of  criti 
cism,  that  the  story  of  Garrison  is  by  no  means  the 
story  of  the  an ti -slavery  movement, — even  the  filial 
biographers  admit  this  by  implication.  The  doings 
of  this  one  remarkable  man  might,  in  fact,  be  al 
most  lifted  bodily  from  the  annals  of  the  general 
endeavor  and  then  considered  with  reasonable  ful 
ness  and  adequacy.  His  is  an  exceptional  instance 
of  isolated  though  not  unrelated  performance,  of 
which  his  own  resolve  to  keep  aloof  from  the  en- 


372          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

tangling  alliances  of  every-day  politics  is  the  ex 
planation.  The  course  of  the  Garrisouiaus  was 
parallel  to,  seldom  convergent  with  the  current 
down  which  the  American  people  are  accustomed 
to  move  toward  an  end.  Their  oue-sidedness  gave 
them  an  astonishing  energy  and  enabled  them  to 
attain  greater  results  than  could  have  been  looked 
for  from  more  complacent  and  tolerant  characters. 
They  had  not  the  impartial  type  of  mind  which  can 
say  with  Tacitus,  u  Mihi  Galbcij  Otlw,  Vitellius  nee 
betieficio,  nee  injuria  cognitL" 

But  Garrison  certainly  builded  better  than  he 
knew  when  he  stopped  the  Liberator  and  resigned 
the  presidency  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety.  His  own  course  was  run  when  he  was  able 
to  say,  not  irreverently,  on  April  15,  1805,  over  the 
grave  of  the  mighty  Calhoun  :  "Down  unto  a 
deeper  grave  than  this  slavery  has  gone,  and  for  it 
there  is  no  resurrection."  He  was  an  important 
instrument  toward  the  achievement  of  an  impera 
tively  necessary  result.  It  was  his  desire  to  have 
slavery  abolished  in  a  far  different  way,  and  he  was 
sincere  when  he  said,  "  I  had  no  idea  that  I  should 
live  to  see  death  and  hell  secede."  He  lived  to  see 
emancipation  proclaimed,  and  three  amendments, 
bearing  on  the  results  which  must  ensue  from  such 
emancipation,  added  to  the  Constitution  which  he 
had  publicly  burned  a  decade  earlier  ;  but  he  was 
not  responsible  for  the  partial  failure  of  the  country 
and  the  government  to  adjust  themselves  to  condi 
tions  forced  upon  them  by  a  destructive  Avar,  hate 
ful  in  principle  to  Garrison  as  perhaps  to  no  other, 


THE  SUMMING  UP— THE  OUTCOME    373 

and  tolerable  to  him  only  because  it  seemed  to  him 
providentially  imposed. 

The  negro  at  last  was  no  longer  a  slave  ;  racially 
he  now  became  an  Afro- American  and  by  enact 
ment  a  man.  The  old  wrong  and  misery  under 
protection  of  the  state  were  over.  Henceforth  the 
freedman  must  work  out  his  own  salvation,  with 
such  aid  as  a  generous  government,  better  education, 
and  gradually  improving  standards  of  life  could  af 
ford  him.  Much  and  often  as  Garrison  found  rea 
son  to  criticize  the  treatment  of  the  negro  from  the 
end  of  the  war  to  the  hour  of  his  death,  he  was  not 
committed  to  the  care-taking  of  this  still  unfortu 
nate  race.  With  a  heart  yet  tender  for  their  plight  \ 
and  their  depressed  position,  his  logical  perception 
must  have  told  him  that  the  freedmen  were  some 
what  in  the  same  case  as  the  so-called  laboring 
classes  on  whom  he  seems  to  have  spent  so  little 
sympathy.  The  working  man  and  the  lately  en-  / 
frauchised  were  under  a  domain  of  law  that  could 
and  would  protect  them  in  their  rights  and  privileges 
up  to  a  certain  point.  Beyond  that  point  they  must 
tread  unaided  the  path  of  opportunity,  narrow  or 
wide  as  it  might  be  ;  not  even  William  Lloyd  Gar 
risoij,  powerful  to  arraign  the  imperfections  of  a 
Constitution  and  a  concrete  national  sin,  could  im 
pose  upon  a  reluctant  country  humanitarian  the 
ories  of  social  toleration  and  of  the  universal  broth 
erhood  of  man. 

The  negro  to-day  is  a  really  neglected  quantity  as 
compared  with  our  attitude  toward  him  half  a  cen 
tury  ago.  While  many  praiseworthy  efforts  are/-  , 


374          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

directed  toward  his  improvement,  and  while  en 
lightened  men  in  the  South  as  well  as  in  the  Korth 
are  devising  plans  to  hearten  him,  he  no  longer,  as 
a  race,  absorbs  our  interest  or  our  attention.  Uncle 
Tom  has  become  merely  Sambo,  doomed  apparently 
to  the  humbler  occupations  and  not  welcomed  in  or 
encouraged  to  rise  to  high  planes  of  life.  He  has 
been  freed  at  a  fabulous  price  ;  he  is  a  citizen  un 
der  the  law  ;  now  let  him,  if  he  can,  take  the  hard 
chances  of  life  like  the  rest  of  us— such  is  the  gen 
eral  attitude  toward  a  melancholy  but  not  neces 
sarily  hopeless  situation. 

One  influence  exerted  by  Garrison  has  lasted  to 
the  present  day,  although  it  is  equally  possible  to 
overestimate  or  underestimate  this  influence  which 
indirectly  affected  those  who  may  never  have  heard 
his  name.  He  preached  no  new  thing,  for  all  that 
he  said  was  good  Scripture  long  before  he  appeared  ; 
but,  aided  by  other  radicals,  as  religious  in  conduct 
as  they  were  infidel  in  creed,  he  dealt  a  really  ter 
rible  blow  to  ecclesiasticism  in  this  country.  The 
point  is  not  whether  the  churches  themselves  were 
a  u brotherhood  of  thieves"  as  Stephen  Foster 
called  them,  or  the  "bulwarks  of  American  slav 
ery"  as  Biruey  said  they  were,  but  whether  they 
were  to  be  dominated  by  a  reactionary  clergy  and 
its  supporters.  In  this  matter  Garrison  had  a  po 
tent  influence,  but  no  such  influence  is  ever  capable 
of  precise  analysis.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that 
the  trend  of  American  religious  life  has  followed 
the  lines  marked  out  by  Garrison  ;— that  the  Sab 
bath  is  now  regarded  in  this  country  with  less  rev- 


THE  SUMMING  UP— THE  OUTCOME   375 

erence  than  in  his  day,  and  is  observed  more  for  its 
value  than  for  its  sanctity ;  that  the  revelation  of 
the  Divine  is  looked  for  within  the  Bible,  and  that 
the  Bible  as  a  whole  is  not  regarded  as  a  mechanic 
ally  perfect  revelation  ;  that  the  ministry  in  most 
evangelical  churches  is  not  a  sacrosanct  body  ;  that 
the  Church  concerns  itself  with  questions  of  the  day  ; 
that  more  stress  is  laid  on  the  Christian's  duty  to 
his  neighbor  than  on  his  duty  to  God.  Before  any 
.important  part  in  this  general  movement  can  be  as 
cribed  to  Garrison,  evidence  must  be  given  that  he 
was  in  some  sense  a  leader  and  not  merely  the  serv 
ant  of  an  influence  so  powerful  as  to  carry  him 
along  with  the  trend  of  the  age. 

If  any  leadership  was  exercised  by  Garrison,  it 
was  a  moral  and  not  an  intellectual  leadership. 
Garrison  originated  no  new  ideas  in  any  field,  but 
proclaimed  ideas  suggested  to  him  by  others  with 
an  energy  and  a  tenacity  j  in  other  words,  with  a 
power  of  will,  that  compelled  attention.  Thus, 
though  Garrison  received  the  suggestion  of  immedi 
ate  emancipation  from  the  Eev.  George  Bourne 
(1816),  the  Eev.  James  Duncan  (1824),  and  perhaps 
Elizabeth  Heyrick,  the  English  Quakeress  (1825), 
yet  his  declaration  of  the  doctrine  made  an  epoch  in 
the  history  of  the  anti-slavery  movement,  because 
it  became  the  rallyiug-point  for  a  body  of  support 
ers,  and  because  it  was  the  platform  of  a  campaign. 
Likewise  the  Eev.  James  Boyle,  J.  H.  Noyes,  and 
H.  C.  Wright  preached  their  own  heresies  with  less 
force  than  Garrison,  though  he  was  in  theological 
matters  but  their  pupil.  It  was  the  Garrisonian 


376          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

Abolitionists  who  first,  decidedly,  powerfully,  and 
with  the  force  of  organized  numbers  assailed  Sab 
batarianism,  ecclesiasticism,  belief  in  the  plenary 
inspiration  of  the  Bible,  and  indifference  to  social 
abuses  in  the  church  of  their  day  ;  and  Garrison  as 
their  head  was  the  recognized  leader  of  this  as  of 
the  extreme  abolition  movement  itself.  The  ortho 
dox  press  chose  the  Abolitionists  as  the  chief  repre 
sentatives  of  contemporary  apostasy,  and  named 
Garrison  the  "  Prince  of  New  England  Infidelity.7' 
Further,  the  influence  of  the  Abolitionists  upon 
the  Transcendentalists  must  be  recognized.  The 
ideas  of  Garrisonianism,  expanded  and  etherealized, 
may  be  traced  in  thetassertious  of  individualism  of 
spirit  and  socialism  of  duty  in  the  pages  of  the 
Transcendental  ists.  No  doubt  it  is  too  much  to  say 
with  Mr.  John  J.  Chapman  that  Garrison  made 
Emerson  possible ;  yet  even  this  exaggeration  is 
useful  in  correcting  the  tendency  to  attribute  over 
much  to  a  German  origin  the  spirit  of  Transcen 
dentalism  in  America.  However  much  the  form  of 
Transcendentalism  may  have  been  affected  by  a 
congenial  German  philosophical  terminology,  its 
sources  and  spirit  are  American.  Its  roots  are  in 
American  life,  in  the  manifold  efforts  to  break 
through  convention  in  American  society,  efforts 
which  in  their  last  analysis  were  but  one  aspect  of 
the  American  consciousness  that  the  United  States 
was  a  vast  laboratory  of  social  experiment,  a  a  New 
World  "  of  the  spirit  as  well  as  of  the  geographical 
atlas,  in  which  a  chosen  people  were  to  establish 
"Time's  noblest  empire."  Garrison's  speaking  out 


THE  SUMMING  UP— THE  OUTCOME   377 

was  the  most  prominent  New  England  expression 
of  the  ferment  which  was  most  active  in  little  circles 
of  radicals  and  reformers  in  regions  farther  west. 
Now  the  mark  of  Transcendentalism  upon  our 
American  religious  life  is  broad  and  deep  j  its  in 
fluence  directly  upon  various  denominations,  even 
upon  Eonian  Catholics,  is  to  be  perceived  in  the 
anti-doginatisin,  the  individualism,  and  the  social 
morality  of  the  church  of  our  day.  On  the  whole, 
then,  that  Garrison's  influence  was  but  one  arnoDg 
many  forces  must  be  conceded  ;  that  in  some  sort 
the  American  religious  world  would  in  time  have 
moved  in  the  direction  which  it  has  taken  is,  per 
haps,  undeniable.  All  that  can  fairly  be  said  is 
that  the  change  took  the  form  it  did  take,  and  came 
when  it  did  come,  in  no  small  part  because  of  Gar 
rison's  mind  and  will. 

If  the  "gods  delight  in  gods"  as  Emerson  says 
they  do,  then,  for  ordinary  mortals,  it  requires 
more  than  a  touch  of  radicalism  in  one's  nature, 
a  revolt  at  the  usual  order  of  things,  and  perhaps 
somewhat  of  the  divine  fire,  to  appreciate  the  Garri 
sons  of  any  age.  Even  Mr.  F.  B.  Sanborn,  still  as 
vigorous  and  unflinching  to  attack  all  forms  of  evil 
as  he  was  sixty  years  ago,  says  of  the  Emancipator, 
whom  he  did  not  meet  until  1852,  that  "his 
methods  were  illogical  in  the  extreme,"  though  he 
found  him  "lovable  and  gentle"  when  not  in  a 
vituperative  mood.  "His  private  life  was  in 
absolute  contrast  with  his  public  career."  In  spite 
of  these  qualifications,  Mr.  Sanborn  thinks  that 
Garrison  did  hold  the  question  of  slavery  "con- 


378          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAEKISON 

stantly  before  the  public  by  his  persistency.'' 
Another  radical,  but  yet  a  milder  one,  believed 
that  "the  purity  of  Garrison's  character,  the  lov 
able  sweetness  of  his  spirit,  and  his  unsparing 
devotion  to  the  welfare  of  others,  made  it  impossible 
for  the  most  orthodox  of  his  friends  to  turn  him 
over  to  Satan,  though  they  were  obliged  to  call  him 
'  infidel.  >" 

Mr.  Archibald  H.  Griinke,  one  of  the  biog 
raphers  of  Garrison,  and  of  the  race  which  owes  so 
much  to  his  memory,  thought  his  subject  "  strangely 
deficient  in  a  sense  of  proportion."  The  lack  is 
well  illustrated  by  Garrison's  strongly  expressed 
sentiments  in  regard  to  the  anti-Chinese  attitude  of 
the  country  just  before  his  death.  He  pronounced, 
with  his  lifelong  vehemence,  this  attitude  to  be 
"  narrow,  conceited,  selfish,  anti-human,  anti- 
Christian."  With  the  sort  of  political  economy  or 
political  science  that  works  out  its  conclusions  by 
means  of  the  calculus,  he  had  no  sympathy,  and  we 
may  fairly  say  that  he  had  no  comprehension  of 
its  method  or  import.  Not  the  action  of  economic 
laws  or  the  pressure  of  the  ethnic  struggle,  but  the 
application  of  larger  and  it  must  be  said  vaguer 
principles  of  universal  justice,  of  absolute  ethics, 
of  the  unity  of  the  human  race,  had  a  real  sig 
nificance  to  him.  For  "  that  general  middliugness," 
— George  Eliot's  phrase — which  accepts  things  as 
they  are  and  tries  to  make  the  best  of  them,  he  had 
no  sympathy.  In  fact  he  came  rather  close  to 
Nietzsche's  "Nie  pozwalam — I  refuse  to  assent." 

It  would  be  unjust  to  an  estimate  of  Garrison's 


THE  SUMMING  UP— THE  OUTCOME    379 

reputation  as  a  public  man  not  to  reckon  in  the 
opinions  of  those  who  knew  him  on  the  intimate 
and  personal  side,  and  who  honored  the  "  purity  of 
his  life  and  the  generous  beauty  of  his  character  " 
— to  use  the  words  of  Eichard  Webb.  But  the  brief 
tributes  of  two  friends  of  widely  differing  type  must 
suffice,  for  they  express  well  enough  the  opinions  of 
those  who  came  to  understand  and  venerate  his 
personality  as  it  was  revealed  to  them.  The  ad 
verse  opinions  have  been  fairly  disclosed  in  the 
course  of  the  present  work.  After  summering  and 
wintering  him  for  many  years,  Samuel  May,  Jr., 
himself  a  bringer  to  the  cause  of  the  rich  gifts  of 
"  integrity,  humanity,  and  culture — inherited  and 
personal/'  was  able  to  say:  "  He  possesses  one  of 
the  most  gentle,  affectionate,  kindly  natures  I  ever 
met  with.  He  never  tires  of  meeting  and  relieving, 
with  words  and  deed,  the  oft-recurring  cases  of 
suffering  and  perplexity.  That  which  would  dis 
turb  and  ruffle  another,  he  meets  with  calmness  and 
patience  ;  and  it  is  a  fact,  that  as  one  and  another 
become  personally  acquainted  with  him,  they  never 
fail  to  express  their  surprise  that  he  is  so  unlike 
what  he  has  been  represented  to  be,  and  what 
indeed,  from  an  occasional  perusal  of  his  writings 
(coupled  with  preconceived  ideas),  they  had  sup 
posed  him  to  be." 

In  more  accentuated  strain,  George  Thompson, 
more  aggressive,  less  gentle  in  word  and  manner 
than  May,  speaks,  after  a  test  of  twenty  years,  of 
his  friend  Garrison  as  "a  man  who,  though  de 
nounced  by  the  state  as  a  traitor,  reviled  by  the 


380          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

Church  as  a  heretic,  and  anathematized  by  the 
slaveholding  conspiracy  of  America  as  an  in 
cendiary,  is  the  truest  patriot,  one  of  the  most 
devout  imitators  of  the  life  of  Christ,  and  one  of  the 
best  friends  of  the  human  race.  If  I  were  asked  to 
name  the  man  of  the  present  age,  who  has  accom 
plished  the  greatest  moral  work  of  the  age,  and 
from  whose  labors  the  mightiest  issues  would  flow,  I 
should  unhesitatingly  pronounce  the  name  of 
William  Lloyd  Garrison." 

Within  two  inches  of  six  feet  tall,  dressed  with 
scrupulous  neatness,  the  happy  possessor  of  good 
teeth,  and  a  clear  complexion  surmounted  by  a 
fine  forehead,  Garrison  was  a  personable  man  to  the 
day  of  his  death.  He  was  unmistakable  and  did 
not  look  like  any  one  of  a  thousand  others.  He 
must  have  had  a  fair  measure  of  good  health,  in 
spite  of  numerous  ailments,  and  an  uncommon 
measure  of  strength  and  energy,  else  he  could  not 
have  endured  the  various  and  prolonged  strains  put 
upon  him.  Possibly  he  hoarded  his  resources  by 
his  habit  of  procrastination  :  w^hat  is  put  off  until 
to-morrow  is  often  never  done,  and  no  one  the 
worse  for  the  delay. 

He  was  a  modern  in  his  love  of  outdoors  and 
took  pleasure  in  some  of  the  less  strenuous  sports. 
He  was  equal  to  a  game  of  whist  and  not  above 
playing  croquet.  His  life  in  his  home  was  ideally 
beautiful,  for  he  was  a  lover  to  his  wife  and  a  j  ust, 
considerate  and  open-hearted  friend  and  companion 
to  his  children.  The  tax  put  upon  his  hospitable 
and  companionable  nature  was  severe  to  one  of 


THE  SUMMING  UP— THE  OUTCOME   381 

most  restricted  means,  but  it  was  borne  by  himself 
and  his  household  with  buoyant  cheerfulness.  His 
was  no  double  nature,  yet  it  is  easy  to  think  that 
there  were  two  Garrisons  :  one  radiant  with  kindli 
ness  and  good-nature  among  his  friends  and  in  his 
family ;  the  other  terrible  and  forbidding  when  he 
arraigned  with  equal  invective  Church  and  State, 
slaveholder  and  pewholder,  merchant  prince  and 
miserable  catcher  of  fugitive  blacks  for  their  apos 
tasy  toward  the  laws  of  God  and  the  principles 
which  should  govern  man. 

Of  his  use  of  the  English  language  it  seems  to  be 
conceded  that  it  was  plain,  vigorous  and  impress 
ive.  He  employed  a  phraseology  based  upon  a 
close  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  ;  the  denunciation 
of  the  prophets  of  woe  was  perhaps  oftener  on  his 
lips  than  were  the  consoling  promises  of  the  new 
dispensation.  He  was  not  eloquent  as  Phillips 
was,  nor  an  orator,  elegant  and  learned,  after  the 
pattern  of  such  contemporaries  as  Charles  Sumner, 
Edward  Everett  and  Eobert  C.  Wiuthrop.  He 
certainly  had  not  the  dynamic,  irresistible  elo 
quence  of  a  Webster.  He  was  sober,  though  not 
without  many  expressions  of  humor,  and  his  pres 
entation  of  argument  required  close  attention.  To 
the  careless  or  the  young  he  was  probably  hard  to 
follow  with  complete  absorption.  But  his  earnest 
ness  did  for  the  cause  he  pleaded  what  perhaps  a 
tongue  of  fire  could  not — it  made  his  hearers  believe 
first  in  him,  and  then  by  natural  sequence  in  his 
reasonings. 

He  wrote  poetry,  especially  sonnets,  of  far  more 


382          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

than  an  ordinary  merit.  To  one  child  certainly, 
the  late  W.  P.  Garrison,  this  gift  descended  in  a 
choice  way.  In  1843  Garrison  published  a  small 
volume  entitled  Sonnets  and  Other  Poems.  Not  only 
did  his  verses  in  the  making  prove  a  consolation 
to  him,  often  during  hours  of  anxiety  and  trouble, 
but  they  unquestionably  were  an  inspiration  to  his 
cause.  Usually  correct  in  form  and  exalted  in 
feeling,  they  still  have  interest.  Now  and  then  he 
would  fall  below  his  own  standard,  as  when  he  put 
forth  the  rather  afflictive  verses  beginning, 

' '  I  am  an  Abolitionist, 
I  glory  in  the  name." 

But  even  such  productions  had  their  uses  for  the 
era  in  which  they  were  written. 

Measured  by  the  highest  standards  of  life,  many 
of  the  ethical  activities  of  the  present  day  are  of 
secondary  value,  since  they  address  themselves  to 
material  improvements  rather  than  to  a  release 
from  thraldom  in  spiritual  affairs.  To  Garrison's 
v  mind  the  struggle  to  free  the  slave  immediately  and 
"without  parley  was,  more  than  anything  else,  a  re- 
\  ligious  combat  in  which  all  the  energies  of  the  soul 
might  have  play.  As  a  humanitarian  he  could  but 
smile  approvingly  on  most  of  the  various  efforts  of 
this  day  to  better  the  lives  of  men,  women  and 
children.  But  he  could  not,  nor  may  we,  regard  as 
of  the  highest  importance  the  earnest,  often  frenzied 
zeal  for  all  the  well-meant  expressions  of  humanity's 
determination  not  to  wax  fat  and  let  its  moral  tissues 
degenerate.  There  are  already  signs  in  the  heavens 


THE  SUMMING  UP— THE  OUTCOME    383 

that  mere  prosperity,  however  vast,  is  not  enough. 
Great  wealth  and  great  power  having  come  to  us  by 
virtue  of  our  ability  and  force,  the  question  is  facing 
us  squarely,  what  to  do  with  them,  and  how  to 
control  them  within  prudent  bounds.  To  modify 
the  working  conditions  of  what  has  happily  been 
called  our  controllable  environment,  without  dis 
turbing  the  constitutional  and  judicial  adjustment 
of  national  life — these  are  problems  which  seem  to 
offer  to  a  great  people  an  undertaking  worthy  of 
its  best  endeavor.  For  such  a  cause  there  must  be 
and  perhaps  already  are  leaders  capable  of  carrying 
so  grave  a  struggle  to  a  successful  issue.  In  such  a 
contest  between  a  people  and  an  internal  evil 
menacing  its  existence,  there  must  be  statesmen, 
great  jurists  capable  of  discerning  the  pitfalls  pre 
pared  for  hastily  contrived  laws.  But  there  will  be 
a  place  for  such  as  Garrison,  uncomplex,  never  de 
viating,  never  tempted  by  the  allurements  of  ambi 
tion,  to  inspire  and  warn.  When  the  issue  is  made 
plain  and  the  people  begin  to  look  for  a  sign — there 
need  be  little  fear  but  that  out  of  the  crucible,  molten 
with  the  fierce  combustion  of  political  and  social 
ideals,  will  come  forth  a  clear  spiritual  product ; 
others  as  fearless  and  single-hearted  as  Garrison 
and  his  little  cohort  will  appear.  In  1865  Garrison 
said  :  "  To-day,  it  is  popular  to  be  president  of 
the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society.  Hence,  my 
connection  with  it  terminates  here  and  now,  both 
as  a  member  and  as  its  presiding  officer."  And 
that  must  be  the  spirit  of  all  who  wage  impersonal 
war  with  spiritual  and  not  lethal  weapons.  It  may 


384          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GAKKISON 

be  doubted,  however,  whether  just  such  an  oppor 
tunity  as  his  will  ever  present  itself  again  in  this 
country.  In  his  day  there  was  homogeneity  ;  ap 
peal  might  be  made  to  fellow  citizens  who  could 
interpret  his  arguments  in  his  own  language,  even 
when  they  could  not  agree  with  them.  He  spoke 
to  his  own  flesh  and  blood  and  was  not  obliged  to 
be  over-conciliatory  to  differences  of  race  and  re 
ligion.  To-day  an  extremist  would  find  it  hard  not 
to  offend  beyond  forgiveness  if  he  assailed  men  and 
measures  in  Garrison's  way.  The  older  freedom 
has  largely  gone.  Perhaps  it  is  just  as  well,  yet  a 
certain  effectiveness  has  been  lost  when  a  fighter 
for  ideals  must  consider  overmuch  whether  he  is 
wounding  racial  or  religious  sensibilities. 

A  foremost  characteristic  of  Garrison's  make-up 
was  a  well-seasoned  hopefulness.  The  clouds  huug 
heavy  over  his  cause  for  twenty  years  before  the 
war  broke  out,  and  were  dark  enough  to  chasten 
even  his  intrepid  soul.  He  saw  compromise  and 
policy  continuously  triumphing  ;  his  own  immediate 
organization  dismembered  by  faction — only  his  little 
handful  of  followers  really  left  to  him  at  times; 
but,  at  heart,  he  really  never  was  discouraged, 
certainly  never  to  the  surrender-point  of  effort. 
Much  that  he  strove  for  has  since  his  death  seemed 
to  come  to  naught.  His  own  peculiar  courage  is 
needed  to-day  among  those  who  cherish  similar 
ideals  of  American  life  and  the  possibilities  con 
tained  therein.  How  strongly  the  hopefulness  and 
inanly  strength  of  the  great  Abolitionist  is  de 
manded  was  well  expressed  by  his  youngest  son  on 


THE  SUMMING  UP -THE  OUTCOME    385 

tlie  occasion  of  the  celebration,  in  1905,  by  the  col 
ored  citizens  of  Boston  of  the  one  hundredth  anni 
versary  of  Garrison's  birth.  It  epitomizes,  as  fol 
lows,  the  aspirations  and  the  misgivings,  but  never 
the  despair  of  American  political  idealism  : 

( l  When  my  father  passed  away,  the  reactionary 
movement  against  the  exercise  of  the  elective  fran 
chise  by  the  Southern  freedinen  had  already  set  in, 
and  his  last  published  utterance  was  a  protest 
against  the  proscription  which  had  driven  hundreds 
of  theiti  from  3ii«^ssippi  and  Louisiana  to  Kansas. 
Since  then  the  fraudulent  tissue  ballots  have  been 
succeeded  by  no  less  fraudulent  enactments  which 
have  practically  disfranchised  the  colored  popula 
tion  of  the  South,  and  if  he  were  to  return  to-day 
he  would  find  not  only  the  Fifteenth  Amendment 
to  the  Constitution  nullified,  but  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment,  which  abolished  slavery,  defied  by  the 
wretches  who  attempted  a  system  of  peonage.  He 
would  find  negroes  excluded  from  juries,  from  all 
town,  city  and  state  governing  bodies,  denied  legal 
intermarriage  with  whites,  restricted  to  negro 
galleries  in  the  theatres  and  negro  cars  on  the 
trains,  subjected  to  excessive  penalties  for  violations 
of  law,  and  in  many  ways  still  victims  of  that  cruel 
and  unrelenting  race  prejudice  which  he  assailed 
from  the  outset  of  his  warfare  seventy-five  years 
ago.  He  would  find  women  denied  their  full  polit 
ical  rights  in  all  but  four  states  of  the  Union,  and 
the  Chinese,  whose  claim  to  equal  treatment  with 
all  other  immigrants  to  our  shores  he  vindicated 
with  his  latest  breath,  still  excluded  as  outcasts. 


386          WILLIAM  LLOYD  GA11KISON 

He  would  view  with  amazement  the  spectacle  of 
the  United  States  seizing  distant  islands,  slaughter 
ing  their  people  by  tens  of  thousands,  and  establish 
ing  colonial  government  l  without  the  consent  of 
the  governed. J  He  would  be  saddened  by  the  mad 
increase  of  naval  armaments,  and  the  increasing 
disposition  to  interfere  in,  and  arbitrarily  regulate, 
the  affairs  of  feebler  countries.  He  would  deplore 
the  lowering  of  civic  ideals,  the  growth  of  the 
commercial  spirit,  which  have  resulted  in  the  wide 
spread  business  and  political  corruption  now  being 
uncovered  in  our  country.  But  would  he  be  dis 
heartened  or  hopeless  as  to  the  future  ?  Assuredly 
not!" 

Of  him,  then,  fearless  to  wage  unending  war 
against  concrete  evil,  yet  spurning  the  coarse 
weapons  of  physical  offense  and  defense,  one  may 
say  with  Emerson  that  he 

11  Unarmed,  faced  danger  with  a  heart  of  trust." 


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INDEX 


Abolition  Intelligencer,  the,  61. 

Abolitionist,  the,  94. 

Adams,  Brooks,  on  Massachu 
setts  theocracy,  156. 

Adams,  John,  29. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  Garrison 
supports  for  presidency,  63; 
respected,  not  liked,  by  Gar 
rison,  64 ;  view  of  Abolition 
ists,  131,  1 68  ;  on  retention  of 
abolition  mail-matter,  131  ; 
on  Channing's  essay,  153; 
unfavorable  comment  on  re 
formers,  169;  suggests  eman 
cipation  under  war  power, 
322. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  the 
younger,  364. 

Adams,  Nehemiah,  his  amusing 
conservatism,  156. 

Adams,  Samuel,  167. 

Adams,  William,  197. 

Alcott,  A.  Bronson,  79,  224. 

Allen,  E.  W.,  Garrison  ap 
prenticed  to,  52;  financial 
backer  of  Free  Press,  56. 

American  and  Foreign  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  "  New  Or 
ganization,"  193. 

American  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
formation  urged,  91;  organi 
zation,  1 10-1 15 ;  anti-political, 
154;  "Clerical  Appeal,"  160  ; 
executive  committee  restrains 
agents,  160;  Garrison  disap 
proves  restriction,  162;  value 
of,  169;  difficulty  with  Mas 
sachusetts  Society,  185,  187  ; 
Garrison  controls,  188; 


schism,  191-196;  funds  low, 
201  ;  dependence  on  Garri- 
sonians,  226;  meetings  not 
representative,  240;  disunion 
policy,  242,  246,  249,  250, 
254;  Rynders  mob,  278-285  ; 
cannot  meet  in  New  York, 
287;  not  disturbed  (1853), 
291 ;  twentieth  anniversary, 
292;  small  attendance  during 
war,  329 ;  factions  unite,  330 ; 
contest  as  to  dissolution,  346. 
American  Colonization  Society, 

39,  7i,93>9S>  II3«  I23-i 
American   Convention  for  Pro 
moting  the  Abolition  of  Sla 
very,  40,  73. 

American  Free-Trade  League, 
Garrison  a  vice-president, 

357- 

American  Peace  Society,  con 
servative,  177,  178. 

American  System,  see  Tariff. 

American  Union  for  the  Relief 
and  Improvement  of  the 
Colored  Race,  anti-Garrison, 
127. 

Ames,  Fisher,  54. 

Anderson,  Robert,  343. 

Andrew,  J.  A.,  341. 

Animals,  Society  for  the  Pre 
vention  of  Cruelty  to,  362. 

Anti-Chinese,  see  Chinese  im 
migration. 

Anti-slavery,  few  controversies 
of  fact,  9 ;  ,"  history  has  no 
gaps,"  41  ;  pre-Garrisonian, 
43 ;  Garrison's  stand  vital, 
45  ;  L.  W.  Bacon  on  useless- 


392 


INDEX 


ness  of  Garrisonian,  69  ;  boy 
cott  of  slave-made  goods,  70, 
199;  strategy  of  anti-slavery 
violence,  84;  agitation  in 
creases  hardness  of  negroes' 
lot,  187;  violence  tends 
toward  war,  113  ;  Eastern  and 
Western  types  differ,  125,  180, 
*95»  *96>  Garrison's  domina 
tion  most  complete  in  New 
England,  184,  185;  separate- 
ness  of  Garrisonian,  37 1 ,  37  2  ; 
and  politics,  154,  181,  190, 
201,  207,  292. 

Anti-Slavery  Conference  (Lon 
don).  353- 

Anti-Slavery  Convention  of 
American  Women,  175. 

Anti-slavery  societies,  between 
1815  and  1830,  38;  before 
1831,  40;  rapid  establishment 
of,  64,  147;  importance,  169; 
"  New  Organization,"  anti- 
Garrison  movement,  191,  198, 
224,  244;  "congregational" 
polity,  196;  decline  during 
war,  328 ;  reconciliation  of 
factions,  330  ;  divisions  as  to 
dissolution,  335. 

Appleton,  Nathaniel,  26. 

Asbury,  Francis,  33. 

Ashurst,  W.  H.,  favors  admit 
ting  women  delegates,  198. 

Atchison,  D.  R.,  308. 

Austin,  J.  T.,  166. 

BACON,  L.,  anti-Garrison,  69 ; 
Garrison  distrusts,  77. 

Bacon,  L.  W.,  69,  77,  106. 

Ballou,  A.,  establishes  Hope- 
dale  community,  225. 

Baptist  Church,  28,  59,  62,  92. 

Bartlett,  Ezekiel,  cares  for  Gar 
rison  in  childhood,  51. 

Bascom,  John,  328. 

Bates,  Hamlett,  attack  on  Gar 
rison,  238. 


Beach,  T.  P.,  236. 

Beckwith,  G.  C.,  177. 

Beecher,  Catherine,  opposes 
lecturing  of  women,  158. 

Beecher,  Edward,  218. 

Beecher,  H.  W.,  on  Rankin  and 
abolition,  44;  begins  to  speak 
at  abolition  meetings,  292 ; 
supports  force  in  Kansas, 
308 ;  speaks  at  Ft.  Sumter 
celebration,  343. 

Beecher,  Lyman,  conservative 
toward  abolition,  79  ;  at  Lane 
Seminary,  125;  on  the  Sab 
bath,  151. 

Bell  and  Everett,  318. 

Benezet,  Anthony,    20,  22,  27, 

3'- 

Bennett,  J.  G.,  incites  pro- 
Southern  violence,  278-280. 

Bennett,  T.  D.,  shelters  Garri 
son  in  need,  58. 

Benson,  George,  father-in-law 
of  Garrison,  100,  117,  118, 

13°.  137- 

Benson,  G.  W.,  brother-in-law 
of  Garrison,  116,  225. 

Benson,  Helen,  see  Garrison, 
Helen  [Benson]. 

Benson,  H.  E.,  brother-in-law 
of  Garrison,  1 16. 

Benson,  Mary,  sister-in-law  of 
Garrison,  243. 

Benton,  T.  L.,  271. 

Bergh,  Henry,  founder  of  the 
S.  P.  C.  A.,  362. 

Bible,  authority  discussed,  204 ; 
Garrison's  reverence  for,  213  ; 
in  public  schools,  362  ;  Gar 
rison  on  the  use  of  texts  from, 
362  ;  current  American  view 
of  inspiration,  375  ;  Garrison's 
use  of,  381. 

Birney,  J.  G.,  leaves  Coloniza 
tion  Society,  125;  offended 
by  Garrison's  response  to 
Clerical  Appeal,  160;  nomi- 


INDEX 


nated  by  Liberty  party,  191 ; 
American  Anti- Slavery  Soci 
ety  disapproves  course,  194  ; 
on  the  church,  374;  men 
tioned,  1 68. 

Bishop,  J.  P.,  attacks  Garrison, 
238. 

Black  laws,  in  Northern  states, 
1850,  278. 

Blaine,  J.  G.,  anti-Chinese 
policy,  369. 

Bloomfield,  Joseph,  31. 

Boston  Female  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  133,  135. 

Boudinot,  Elias,  31. 

Bourne,  George,  suggests  im 
mediate  emancipation,  375. 

Bowditch,  H.  I.,  175. 

Bo  wring,  John,  favors  admit 
ting  women  delegates,  198. 

Boyle,  James,  teaches  Garrison 
heterodoxy,  375. 

Breckenridge,  John,  contempt 
of  Garrison,  1 23. 

Bright,  John,  on  George  Thomp 
son,  121  ;  speech  in  honor  of 
Garrison,  352. 

British  and  Foreign  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  157. 

Brook  Farm,  172,  204,  225. 

Brown,  B.  Gratz,  330. 

Brown,  D.  P.,  at  dedication  of 
Pennsylvania  Hall,  173. 

Brown,  John,  17,  163;  at  Har 
per's  Ferry,  313;  Garrison's 
view  of,  313,  314,  356;  Bos 
ton  meeting  in  memory  of 
broken  up,  317. 

Brown,  J.  L.,  condemned  to 
death,  261. 

Brown,  Nehemiah,  carries  cargo 
of  slaves,  75. 

Brownson,  Orestes,  169. 

Bryce,  James,  140. 

Buchanan,  James,  310,  319. 

Buffum,  Arnold,  first  president 
of  New  England  Anti-Slavery 


Society,  92,  93  ;  at  organiza 
tion  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  1 1 1 ;  opposes  disun 
ion  resolutions,  250. 

Bunyan,  John,  75,  137. 

Burleigh,  C.  C,  with  Garrison 
before  Boston  mob,  135  ;  aids 
Garrison  on  Liberator,  149  ;  a 
less  extreme  Garrisonian, 
227 ;  appearance  and  char 
acter,  230 ;  butt  of  Rynders 
mob,  285  ;  funeral,  366. 

Burling,  William,  27. 

Burns,  Anthony,  attempt  to  res 
cue,  305,  310  ;  order  remand 
ing  burnt  by  Garrison,  307. 

Burr,  Aaron,  91. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  354. 

Butler,  B.  F.,  369. 

Butler,  Mrs.  Josephine  E.,  agi 
tates  against  Contagious  Dis 
eases  Act,  362. 

Buxton,  T.  F.,  106,  199. 

Byron,  Lady,  198. 

CALHOUN,  J.  C.,  interprets  Con 
stitution  as  Garrison  does, 
242 ;  Garrison  at  tomb,  343, 
372 ;  mentioned,  45. 

Cameron,  Simon,  and  enlist 
ment  of  negroes,  331. 

Capital  punishment,  opposed  by 
Garrison,  89. 

Capron,  E.  L.,  at  organization 
American  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  ill. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  152. 

Cavendish,  Lord  Frederick, 
141. 

Channing,  W.  E.,  his  "  Essay 
on  Slavery,"  142-144;  mag 
nanimity,  150;  at  Chardon 
Street  Convention,  204  ;  men 
tioned,  165. 

Channing,  W.  H.,  204. 

Chapman,  J.  J.,  essay  on  Emer 
son,  220-22 1  ;  on  Garrison 


394 


INDEX 


and  Transcendentalism, 
376. 

Chapman,  Maria  W.,  her  cour 
age,  135;  on  meeting  of  Gar 
rison  and  Channing,  143  ;  ad 
dress  at  dedication  of  Penn 
sylvania  Mall,  174;  at  schism 
of  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  193  ;  delegate  to 
World's  Convention,  197  ;  as 
sists  in  editing  Liberator, 
249;  mentioned,  44,  179. 

Chardon  Street  Convention,  dis 
cusses  Sabbath  and  ministry, 
202-204 ;  discusses  church, 
214;  No-organization  in,  224. 

Chase,  S.  P.,  245,  265. 

Chatham,   Earl    of,  59. 

Cheever,  G.  B.,  126. 

Cherokee  Indians,  contest  with 
Georgia,  90. 

Child,  D.  L.,  employs  Garrison, 
59 ;  at  formation  of  New 
England  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
92  ;  opposes  disunion  resolu 
tions,  250. 

Child,  Lydia  M.,  wife  of  D.  I, 
Child,  92 ;  her  anti-slavery 
writings,  142;  on  committee 
of  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  193;  editor  Stand 
ard,  195  ;  delegate  to  World's 
Convention,  197. 

Chinese  immigration,  Garrison 
opposed  to  restriction,  369, 
378  ;  exclusion  still  continues, 

385- 

Church,  Garrison  feels  the  su- 
pineness  of,  77 ;  Garrison's 
conflict  with,  81  ;  the  church 
and  reform,  1 28  ;  conservative 
tendencies  manifested,  129, 
147,  235 ;  ecclesiasticism  in 
Massachusetts,  156;  "Cler 
ical  Appeals,"  158,  159;  op 
poses  women's  activity,  176  ; 
authority  discussed,  202 ;  Gar- 


r  i  s  o  n '  s  anti-ecclesiasticism , 
208-211,  213,  223,  226,  227, 
232,  296;  anti-ecclesiastical 
resolutions  of  Wendell  Phil 
lips,  250;  church  in  Ohio  more 
radical  than  in  the  East,  265  ; 
influence  of  Garrisonianism 
on  church  in  America,  376. 

Civil  service  reform,  37,  357. 

Civil  War,  see  War,  Civil." 

Clarkson,  Thomas,  102. 

Clay,  C.  M.,  291. 

Clay,  Henry,  76,  77,  190. 

Clergy,  Garrison's  severity 
toward,  27,  212;  opposed  to 
women  delegates,  188,  198  ; 
authority  of,  202,  213  ;  Gar 
rison  opposed  to  as  an  order, 
296 ;  Garrison  suggests  im 
provements  in  preaching, 
362  ;  present  American  feel 
ing  as  to,  374. 

Cleveland,  G  rover,  37. 

Coffin,  Joshua,  recording  secre 
tary  New  England  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  93  ;  at  or 
ganization  of  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  ill;  ineffi 
cient  canvass  for  Liberator, 
119. 

Coke,  Thomas,  his  anti-slavery 
boldness,  32-33. 

Coles,  Edward,  saves  Illinois  to 
free-soil,  42. 

Collier,  William,  total  absti 
nence  editor,  59 

Collins,  J.  A.,  agent  Massachu 
setts  Anti-Slavery  Society  in 
England,  202  ;  on  attacks  on 
Garrison,  213;  accounts  as 
sailed,  238. 

Colonization,  Stiles  and  Hop 
kins  lean  to,  30 ;  Garrison 
supports,  64,  66;  L.  Bacon's 
support  of,  69  ;  Lundy  carries 
slaves  to  Hayti,  70;  Garri 
son  prefers  Hayti  to  Africa, 


INDEX 


395 


7 1 ;  attacked  in  Walker's 
"  Appeal,"  73  ;  renounced  by 
Garrison,  80;  Garrison's 
"  Thoughts  on  Colonization," 
89,  95  ;  Garrison  attacks 
colonization  idea  in  England, 
102,  1 06;  colonization  sug 
gested  by  Lincoln,  324 ; 
mentioned,  127  ;  see  Amer 
ican  Colonization  Society. 

Colored  People  of  the  United 
States,  Convention  of,  91. 

Colver,  Nathaniel,  anti-Garri- 
sonian  activity,  185,  202,  205, 
213;  Garrison  attacks,  204. 

Commons,  J.  H.,  on  American 
land  laws,  226. 

Communities,  see  Brook  Farm  ; 
Hopedale ;  Northampton  ; 
Noyes,  J.  H. 

Compromise  of  1850,  276. 

Congregational  Church  (Ortho 
dox)  30,  66-67,  79«  J56- 

Connecticut  Abolition  Society, 
in  Revolution,  30. 

Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  Garrison  reverences, 
88;  Garrison  regards  as  a 
pro-slavery  compact,  242 ; 
free-soil  interpretation,  245, 
253»  2^7  J  Garrison  burns, 
306  ;  Republican  party  faith 
ful  to  pro-slavery  agree 
ment  in,  317;  see  Thirteenth 
amendment ;  Fourteenth  and 
Fifteenth  amendments ;  Dis 
union  policy. 

Contagious    Diseases  Act,  362, 

367- 

Coolidge,  Susan,  354. 

Courier,  the,  Boston,  59. 

Cousin,  Victor,  172. 

Cox,  A.  L.,  115. 

Cox,  S.  H.,  115. 

Cradle  of  Liberty,  the,  aboli 
tionist  paper,  187. 

Cranch,  C.  P.,  204. 


Crandall,  Prudence,  mob  vio 
lence  against,  99-101,  122. 

Cresson,  Edward,  agent  Coloni 
zation  Society,  102,  106. 

Cropper,  James,  English  cor 
respondent  of  Genius,  71  ; 
opposes  Colonization  Society, 
102  ;  mentioned,  106,  108. 

Crosby,  Howard,  354. 

Crow,  J.  F.,  editor  Abolition  In- 
telligencer,  61. 

Gushing,  Caleb,  54,  58. 

Cutts,  J.  Smith,  see  Smith,  J. 
Cutts. 

Cuyler,  T.  L.,  354. 

DARWIN,  CHARLES,  72. 
Debt,  imprisonment  for,  89. 
Democratic  party,   63,  64,  189, 

201,  256,  317,  361,  364. 
Denison,  C.  W.,  will  not  serve 

on  committee  with  a  woman, 

193- 
Dickens,   Charles,  "  Martin 

Chuzzlewit  "  alluded  to,  109 ; 

American      sensitiveness     to 

comment,  122,  140. 
Dickerson,    Samuel,  freedman, 

343- 

Dickinson,  John,  early  opponent 
of  slavery,  30. 

District  of  Columbia,  Abolition 
in,  before  1830,  39,  62,  64  ; 
gradual  abolition  proposed, 
65  ;  a  strategic  point  in  poli 
tics,  127,  147,  149;  renewed 
petitions,  168,  276;  demand 
made  subject  of  political 
pledge,  181 ;  Lincoln's  vote 
on,  317. 

Disunion  policy,  announced  by 
Garrison,  239 ;  abolitionists 
divide  on,  241-245,  253; 
ground  of  mob  violence, 
279;  Garrison  burns  Consti 
tution,  307 ;  Garrison  main 
tains  policy  against  Repub- 


396 


INDEX 


licans,  309 ;  disunion  conven 
tion  proposed,  311 ;  Garrison 
thinks  secession  opens  way  to, 
318. 

Dole,  Ebenezer,  aids  Garrison 
financially,  76. 

Douglas,  S.  A.,  304. 

Douglass,  Frederick,  becomes 
an  anti-slavery  lecturer,  232- 
234;  in  Scotland,  261;  in 
Ohio,  266,  268,  269  ;  New 
York  Globe  incites  violence 
against,  279 ;  at  Rynders 
mob,  283 ;  will  not  join  J. 
Brown,  314;  at  anti-slavery 
love-feast,  330. 

Drake,  Sir  Francis,  and  slave- 
trade,  24. 

Duncan,  James,  375. 

Dwight,  Timothy,  31,  87. 


EARLE,  THOMAS,  191. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  Sr.,  does 
not  condemn  slavery,  31. 

Edwards;  Jonathan,  Jr.,  preach 
es  against  slavery,  30. 

Eliot,  C.  W.,  175. 

Eliot,  George,  378. 

Eliot,  John,  24. 

Eliot,  S.  A.,  represses  riot  in 
Boston,  175. 

Eliot,  W.  G.,  opposes  regulation 
of  prostitution,  362. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  23. 

Emancipation,  gradual,  27,  31, 
32,  37,  61,  64,  68,  82,  115, 
324-326,  330;  early  petition 
for  in  Virginia,  33  ;  imme 
diate,  35,  82,  375 ;  com 
pensated,  72,  114;  Repub 
lican  party  does  not  propose, 
317  ;  Adams's  suggestion  of 
under  war  power,  322;  Gar 
rison  urges  on  Lincoln,  322- 
327;  West  Indian,  102,  106, 
173.  362. 


Emancipation  Proclamation, 
326,  329,  330.  339- 

Emancipation  Society  (Lon 
don),  262. 

Emancipator,  the  (editor,  E. 
Embree),  61  ;  Emancipator, 
the  (editor,  J.  Leavitt), 
160,  162,  194,  247. 

Embree,  Elihu,  61. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  a  successful 
individualist,  17;  J.  (,). 
Adams  on,  169  ;  on  Chardon 
Street  Convention,  203;  J.  J. 
Chapman  on,  220,  221,  376; 
on  parliamentary  routine, 
224 ;  on  \Vebster's  7th  of 
March  speech,  277  ;  on  Gar 
rison,  386. 

Evarts,  Jeremiah,  22. 

Evarts,  W.  M.,  22. 

Everett,  Edward,  not  at  anti- 
abolition  meeting,  131;  judg 
ment  of  slavery,  148;  oratory 
of,  381 ;  see  Bell  and  Everett. 


FARNHAM,  CAPTAIN,  and  wife, 
protect  Garrison's  mother,  51. 

Federal  party,  54,  55,  88. 

Fessenden,  Samuel,  leaves, 
Colonization  Society,  96. 

Fessenden,  \V.  P.,  Garrison's 
bitterness  against,  356. 

Fillmore,  Millard,  363. 

Finney,  C.  G.,  Anti-Slavery 
Society  organized  in  his 
chapel,  108 ;  in  Ohio,  265 ; 
at  Oberlin,  269;  contributes 
to  Independent,  355. 

Fisher,  Miers,  31. 

Fiske,  John,  122. 

Fitch,  Charles,  signer  of  "  Cler 
ical  Appeal,"  162. 

Follen,  Charles,  disapproves 
Garrison's  violence,  119;  at 
legislative  hearing,  144 ;  life, 
144  n,  ;  mentioned,  275. 


INDEX 


397 


Folsom,  Abby,  at  Chardon 
Street  Convention,  204. 

Foster,  Abby  [Kelley],  address 
at  Pennsylvania  Hall,  174; 
appointment  on  committee 
precipitates  schism,  193 ;  dele 
gate  to  World's  Convention, 
197 ;  anti-clerical  resolutions, 
227 ;  appearance  and  char 
acter,  229,  232 ;  leader  in 
disunion  movement,  242 ; 
lectures  against  Liberty  party, 
245,  268,  292;  opposes  Lin 
coln's  plan  of  reconstruction, 

Foster,  S.  S.,  his  methods,  227, 
228,  231,  232;  lectures  against 
Liberty  party,  245,  267,  268, 
292 ;  opposes  Lincoln,  337  ; 
the  church  "  a  brotherhood  of 
thieves,"  374. 

Fourier,  F.  M.  C.,  172. 

Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
amendments,  372,  385. 

Fowler  Bros.,  phrenologists, 
examine  Garrison,  152. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  opposition 
to  slavery,  30  ;  first  president 
Pennsylvania  Society  for  Pro 
moting  the  Abolition  of  Sla 
very,  40;  early  career  and 
Garrison's,  53,  54;  other  re 
semblances  to  Garrison,  75, 
105  ;  mentioned,  20,  23. 

Free  Church  of  Scotland,  its 
"  tainted  money,"  260-263. 

Free-Masonry  opposed  by  Gar 
rison,  89. 

Free  Press,  the,  Newburyport, 
Garrison  edits,  56,  58. 

Free  soil  doctrines,  early  in 
stances  of,  43 ;  progress  after 
Mexican  War,  27 2 ;  in  Kansas, 
308. 

Free-Soil  party,  273,  289. 

Freedmen,  329,  343,  348,  368- 
37°- 


Fremont,  J.  C.,  order  emanci 
pating  slaves,  322,  327  ;  nom 
inated  for  President  against 
Lincoln,  337. 

French,  J.  R.,  son-in-law  of 
N.  P.  Rogers,  257. 

Friends,  anti-slavery  record,  17; 
colonial  efforts  of,  28 ;  in 
fluence  later,  37 ;  in  early 
abolition  societies,  40 ;  emi 
grate  to  Indiana  to  escape 
slavery,  42 ;  English,  107  ;  in 
American  Society,  1 10 ;  Gar 
rison  a  Progressive  Friend, 
208,  367. 

Friends  of  Christian  Union,  202. 

Friends  of  Universal  Reform, 
202. 

Fry,  Elizabeth,  199. 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  copy  of 
burned  by  Garrison,  306;  re 
pealed,  340. 

Fugitive  slaves,  272,  276,  286, 
287,  363  ;  case  of  Burns,  305. 

Furness,  W.  H.,  282. 

GALES  and  Seaton,  publish 
threats  against  Garrison,  85. 

Gannett,  E.  S.,  anti-Garrison- 
ian,  79,  177. 

Garrison,  Abijah,  father  of  Gar 
rison,  46-50. 

Garrison,  Agnes,  daughter  of 
W.  L.  Garrison,  Jr.,  351. 

Garrison,  C.  F.,  son  of  Garrison, 
birth,  246  ;  death,  275. 

Garrison,  Elizabeth,  sister  of 
Garrison,  55. 

Garrison,  Elizabeth,  daughter  of 
Garrison,  274. 

Garrison,  Ellen  [Wright],  mar 
ries  W.  L.  Garrison,  Jr.,  351. 

Garrison,  F.  J.,  son  of  Garrison, 
biographer  of  father,  50 ; 
birth,  275  ;  address  at  centen 
nial  of  Garrison's  birth,  385. 

Garrison,    Frances    Maria 


398 


INDEX 


[Lloyd],   Garrison's  mother, 

47-53.55.  117- 

Garrison,  G.  T.,  son  of  Garri 
son,  332. 

Garrison,  Helen  [Benson],  wife 
of  Garrison,  marriage,  116, 
117;  household  anxieties, 
235  ;  illness,  246  ;  injury  to 
wrist,  248  ;  dislikes  spiritual 
ism,  301  ;  stricken  with  par 
alysis,  333  ;  character,  334  ; 
death,  367. 

Garrison,  Helen  Frances,  see 
Villard,  Helen  [Garrison]. 

Garrison,  James,  brother  of 
Garrison,  50,  52,  244. 

Garrison,  Joseph,  paternal 
grandfather  of  Garrison,  46, 

47; 

Garrison,  Lucy  [McKim], 
wife  of  W.  P.  Garrison,  367. 

Garrison,  W.  P.,  son  of  Garri 
son,  birth,  199 ;  editor  Na 
tion,  199  n.  ;  his  verse,  382. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd, 'f,cai 
reer,  17-28 ;  sows  seed  of 
war,  40;  importance  of  his 
decisive  stand,  45  ;  ancestry, 
46,  47 ;  childish  years,  48 ; 
apprenticeships,  52;  typo 
graphical  skill,  53,  57,  349  ; 
resemblance  of  career  to 
Franklin's,  53,  54;  con 
tributes  to  Newburyport 
Herald,  55  ;  in  debating  so 
ciety,  56  ;  editor  Free  Press, 
56 ;  his  literary  style,  57, 
381  ;  goes  to  Boston,  58; 
editor  National  Philanthro 
pist,  59 ;  »meets  Benjamin 
Lundy,  60,  62 ;  edits  Ben- 
nington,  Vl.,  Journal  of  the 
Times,  63 ;  edits  Genius 
of  Universal  Emancipation, 
66 ;  speaks  in  Park  Street 
Church,  66-68  ;  «  declares 
slavery  a  national  sin,  68 ; 


r  promulgates  doctrine  of  im- 
mediatism,  70 ;  advocates 
-multitude  of  reforms,  72  ;  on 
"  Walker's  Appeal,"  74 ; 
fined  and  imprisoned  for  li 
beling  Francis  Todd,  74-76  ; 
plans  to  issue  paper  in  Wash 
ington,  77  ;  speaks  in  Boston 
against  colonization,  79;;  es 
tablishes  Liberator,  81  ; 
threatened  with  personal  vio 
lence  by  Southerners,  85, 
86 ;  reverences  Constitution, 
88  ;  universal  reformer,  90  ; 

^begins  to  be  a  national 
leader,  91  ;  'his  "  Thoughts 
on  African  Colonization," 
94-97  ;  .  encourages  Miss 
Crandall  in  teaching  ne- 
gresses,  99-101 ;  solicits  funds 
in  England  for  manual  labor 
school,  102-108;  in  danger 
of  mob  in  Boston,  109  ;>  at 
organization  of  American 
Anti- Slavery  Society,  ill; 
secretary  of  foreign  corre 
spondence,  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  115  ;  marries 
Helen  Benson,  116;  settles 
in  Roxbury,  117;  financial 
distresses,  118,  139,  249, 
316,  351  ;  f severity  of  lan 
guage  and  power  to  irritate, 
119-123,  141,  150,  160,  161, 
181-183,  227;  in  danger  of 
mobbing,  124;  votes  for 
Amasa  Walker,  127  ;  mobbed 
in  Boston,  133-139;  judg 
ment  of  Channing's  essay, 
142-144 ;  notified  to  give  up 
Higginson  pew,  144  ;  phren 
ological  examination,  152; 
opposes  organising  abolition- 

vist  party,  154;  answers 
11  Clerical  Appeal,"  158  ;  l>is 

/desire  to  dominate,  161  ;  on 
death  of  Lovejoy,  165 ;  rela- 


INDEX 


399 


tions  with  J.  Q.  Adams,  168 ; 
his  relation  to  the  ferment  of  »t, 
his   time,    170-173;    address 
at     dedication    of     Pennsyl 
vania  Hall,  I73;»on  woman 
question,      176;     active      at 
Peace  Convention,    177;    on 
editorial   committee   of  non-  \ 
resistant    paper,      179;     his  t 
methods,      181-184;     holds  ] 
control  in  New  England,  not   } 
in  the  West,  184  ;  overthrows 
plan  to  crush  Liberator,  185, 
186 ;    establishes    Cradle   of 
Liberty      (weekly),     and 
Monthly       O/ering,       187 ; 
'holds  control  in  abolition  so-  -./ 
cieties,    191-194 ;     sent     as 
delegate  to  World's  Conven 
tion,  195  ;  voyage,  196,  197  ; 
bolts  because  of  exclusion  of 
women,  198 ;  makes  notable 
acquaintances,  198,  199; 
visits  Scotland  and  Ireland, 
200  ;  denounces  theatres,  218  ; 
non-resistance      ideas,     218;  , 
no-government     ideas,     219,  \ 
223  ;  his  individualism,  220  ;  j 
his    service    to    freedom   of  I 
thought  in  the  United  States, 
221  ;•<  opposes    No-organiza 
tion,  224  ;  activity  in  lectur 
ing,  226  ;   his  oratory,    230  ;-' 
on  F.    Douglass's  Cape  Cod 
speech,    233;     excursion    to 
White  Mountains,  234  ;  alien 
ation    of     Knapp     alienated 
from,    237 ;     disunion     pro 
gramme,  239,  242  ;  conducts 
funeral    of    brother,    James, 
245  ;  delivers  lectures  in  New 
England  and  in  western  New 
York,  244,  245  ;  *calls  Consti 
tution  "  a  covenant  with  death 
and  an  agreement  with  hell," 
246 ;    method   of    presiding, 
247  j    editorial     negligence,  J 


249  ;  <  his  disunion  resolu 
tions  adopted  by  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  249  y  his 
anti -slavery  papers  and  Low 
ell's,  252;  on  Liberty  party 
interpretation  of  the  Consti 
tution,  253  ;  disunion  ideas, 
255  ;  aids  C.  T.  Torrey  in 
imprisonment,  256;  es 
trangement  from  N.  P. 
Rogers,  257 ;  favorable  re 
ception  in  Massachusetts, 
259  ;  C.  Sumner  on  his  ora 
tory,  260 ;  agitates  against 
Free  Kirk,  260-263  >  relation 
between  Garrison  and  Eng 
lish  abolitionists,  262 ;  visits 
Ohio,  264-270;  insight  into 
effect  of  Texan  annexation, 
271  ;  on  Wilmot  Proviso, 
273 ;  welcomes  Free-Soil 
party,  273  ;  at  Northampton 
water-cure,  274  ;  view  of 
Compromise  of  1850,  276, 
277  v  at  Rynders  mob,  279- 
285  ;  celebrates  twentieth  an 
niversary  of  Liberator,  287  ; 
fails  to  get  Father  Mathew 
or  Kossuth  to  make  a  decla 
ration,  287-289 ;  on  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin,  289;  visits 
Cincinnati,  290 ;  visits  Mich 
igan,  292 ;  his  interest  in 
phrenology,  in  clairvoyance, 
301 ;  his  experiments  in 
medicine,  275,  301-303 ;  his 
interest  in  household  inven 
tions,  303  ;  in  phonography, 
304 ;  his  hope  for  a  uni 
versal  language,  303,  353; 
fails  to  see  importance  of 
Nebraska  bill,  305  ;  i  burns 
Constitution,  306 ;  on  Kansas 
settlers,  309;  view  of  Re 
publican  party,  309,  316, 
317^  urges  peaceful  dissolu 
tion,  310,  311,  318;  antici- 


400 


INDEX 


pates  Lincoln  as  to  "  a  house 
divided  against  itself,"  310; 
•  comments  on  John  Brown, 
313,  314;  prints  "  The  New 
Reign  of  Terror,"  315;  crit 
icism  of  Seward,  320,  321  ; 
view  of  Lincoln,  320-325  ; 
influences  British  sentiment 
in  favor  of  the  North,  327  ;  on 
the  draft,  327 ;  addresses  stu 
dent  society  at  Williams  Col 
lege,  328;  kindly  received 
in  New  York,  329 ;  remi 
niscences  of  Lundy,  330;  be 
havior  to  son,  G.  T.  Garrison, 
who  enters  the  army,  332 ; 
untrue  legends  of,  333 ;  in 
minority  in  anti-slavery  so 
cieties  on  support  of  Lincoln, 
335  >  views  of  reconstruction, 
336 ;  on  candidacy  of  Fre 
mont,  337,  338 ;  spectator  at 
Republican  convention,  338 ; 
visits  Washington  and  meets 
Lincoln,  339,  340;  gen 
eral  respect  shown,  341 ; 
at  celebration  of  the  fall  of 
Charleston,  341,  342 ;  at 
tomb  of  Calhoun,  343  ;  with 
draws  from  anti-slavery  so 
cieties,  345-347 ;  W7estern 
lecture  tour,  348;  valedictory 
in  Liberator,  349 ;  home  in 
Roxbury,  350 ;  testimonial 
fund,  351  ;  visits  Europe, 
352 ;  character  by  R.  D. 
Webb,  354;  contributes  to 
New  York  Independent, 
354,  355^011  reconstruction, 
355  ;  on  Andrew  Johnson, 
356 ;  supports  Grant,  357  ; 
suggestion  of  senatorship, 
357  >  supports  many  political 
and  social  reforms,  357,  360- 
362 ;  an  individualist  as  to 
industrial  questions,  225, 
226,  359,  ,  360 ;  a  general 


censor,  362-364 ;  officiates  at 
abolition  funerals,  365,  366; 
loses  wife,  367 ;  visits  Eng 
land,  367,  368;  farewell  to 
George  Thompson,  368  ^op 
poses  withdrawal  of  troops, 
368 ;  opposes  Elaine  on 
Chinese  immigration,  369 ; 

4in  favor  of  woman  suffrage, 
369 ;  starts  relief  fund  for 
negroes  leaving  Louisiana 
and  Mississippi,  370 ;  last 
illness  and  death,  370 ;  char- 

« acter  and  career,  371,  377- 
386  ;  health,  148,  149,  237, 

.245,     246,    248,     249,    270, 

1274,     287,    291,    316,    323, 

1329,  335»  348,  367»  37°; 
'brought  up  a  Baptist,  59 ; 
denominational  fixity  re 
laxed,  77,  78,  130;  Sab 
batarianism  feeling  lessens, 
151  ;  at  Chardon  Street  Con 
vention,  203-205  ;  hetero 
doxy  increases,  208—212; 
anti-Sunday  law  convention, 
293-296;  opposed  to  a  cler 
ical  order»and  an  ecclesiastical 
organization,  296 ;  opposed 
to  worship  of  the  Bible, 
297 ;  views  on  the  atone 
ment  and  the  divinity  of 
Jesus,  299 ;  his  essentially 
religious  nature,  300;  leans 
to  spiritualism,  300,  301,  365  ; 
the  ecclesiastical  elements  in 
his  character,  365 ;  his  in 
fluence  on  American  religious 
ideas,  374-37 6- 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  Jr., 
son  of  Garrison,  marries 
Ellen  Wright,  355. 

Genius  of  Universal  Emanci 
pation,  the,  60-66,  70-76. 

Giddings,  J.  R.,  a  political 
abolitionist,  265 ;  debates 
with  Garrison,  267,  268 ; 


INDEX 


401 


perceives  effect  of  annex 
ation  of  Texas,  279  ;  at  anti- 
slavery  love-feast,  330. 

Gilliland,  John,  31. 

Gladden,  Washington,  354. 

Globe,  the,  New  York,  incites 
pro-Southern  violence,  279. 

Goodell,  William,  leaves  Coloni 
zation  Society,  97 ;  at  or 
ganization  of  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  ill  ;  calls 
Garrison  a  Napoleon,  186; 
anti-Garrisonian,  192;  author 
of  Slavery  and  Anti-Slavery, 
192  ;  leader  in  Liberty  party, 
245  ;  mentioned,  168. 

Gorsuch,  Edward,  killed  by 
fugitive  slaves,  286. 

Gradual  emancipation,  see 
Emancipation,  gradual. 

Grant,  Moses,  conservative  on 
anti-slavery,  79. 

Grant,  Robert,  speaker  for 
Rynders  mob,  283. 

Grant,  U.  S.,  Missouri  votes  for 
nomination,  338 ;  Garrison 
supports,  357 ;  administration 
referred  to,  364. 

Greeley,  Horace,  283,  357. 

Green,  Beriah,  leaves  Coloniza 
tion  Society,  97  ;  at  organiza 
tion  of  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  1 1 1 ;  agent  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  115. 

Greenback- Labor  party,  369. 

Greenleaf,  Simon,  converted 
from  colonization,  97. 

Griffin,  Sir  Lepel,  140. 

Grimke,  Angelina,  see  Weld, 
Angelina  [Grimke]. 

Grimke,  Archibald  H.,  on  Gar 
rison,  378. 

Grimke,  Sarah,  begins  to  lec 
ture,  157 ;  agitation  for 
woman's  rights,  160;  Garri 
son  officiates  at  funeral,  366. 

Guerrero,  Vicente,  President  of 


Mexico,  emancipates  slaves, 

73; 

Gulliver,  John,  owns  New  Eng 
land  Spectator,  162. 
Gurney,  Samuel,  106,  199. 

«  H.  H.,"  see  Jackson,  Helert 
H. 

Harrison,  W.  H.,  194. 

Hastings,  Warren,  261. 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  23. 

Haydon,  Benjamin,  199. 

Hayes,  R.  B.,  368. 

Hayne,  R.  Y.,  desires  suppres 
sion  of  Garrison  by  law,  85  ; 
Webster's  reply  to,  166. 

Hayti,  negro  colonization  in, 
70,  71;  recognition  of  inde 
pendence,  322. 

Hemans,  Felicia  D.,  54. 

Henny,  a  colored  woman,  53. 

Henry,  see  McHenry,  Jerry. 

Hepburn,  John,  26,  27. 

Herald,  the,  Newburyport,  52- 

54.  56- 

Herald,  the,  New  York,  pro- 
Southern,  278. 

Herald  of  Freedom,  the,  aboli 
tion  paper,  234,  257. 

Heyrick,  Elizabeth,  immediate 
emancipationist,  375. 

Higginson,  Henry,  withdraws 
privilege  of  pew  from  Garri 
son,  144. 

Higginson, T.  W.,  144;  disunion 
abolitionist,  310 ;  confidant 
of  J.  Brown,  312  ;  contributes 
to  Independent,  354. 

Hillard,  G.  S.,  his  oratory  and 
Garrison's,  260. 

Hoar,  Samuel,  256. 

Holmes,  Obadiah,  117. 

Homer,  J.  L.,  writes  handbill 
inciting  riot  in  Boston,  134. 

Hopedale  community,  225. 

Hopkins,  J.  H.,  Bishop  of  Ver 
mont,  Garrison  on,  363. 


402 


INDEX 


Hopkins,  Samuel,  29,  30. 

Hovey,  C.  F.,  kindness  to  Gar 
rison,  315  ;  Hovey  fund,  316, 
340. 

Howe,  S.  G.,  56. 

Howitt,  William  and  Mary, 
199. 

Hunter,  David,  military  emanci 
pation  order,  324,  327. 

Hyacinthe,  Pere,  355. 

IMMIGRATION,  CHINESE,  369. 
Impartial   Citizen,  the,    edited 

by    S.    S.    Ward,    a     negro, 

284. 
Independent,    the,    New  York, 

Garrison  contributes  to,  354- 

356. 
Indians,  Cherokee,  in  Georgia, 

22,    90 ;     atrocities    against, 

362»  364. 

International  Anti-Slavery 
Conference  (Paris),  353. 

JACKSON,  ANDREW,  63, 64, 123, 

145- 

Jackson,  Francis,  Female  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  take  refuge 
at  his  house,  135  ;  Harriet 
Martineau  speaks  at  house, 
144  ;  vice-president  of  Amer 
ican  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
193,  247  ;  death,  324  ;  men 
tioned,  1 68. 

Jackson,     Helen    Hunt    ("  H. 

T     HV'1'   355' 

Jay,  John,  20,  31. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  29. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  Garrison's 
view  of,  355. 

Johnson,  Oliver,  on  pre-Garri- 
sonian  anti-slavery,  34 ;  a 
founder  of  New  England 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  92 ; 
acting  editor  of  Liberator, 
104,  155,  182;  biographer  of 
Garrison,  104;  edits  National 


Anti- Slavery  Standard,  195, 

340. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  59,  224. 
Journal  of  the  Times,  the,  Ben- 

nington,  Vt.,  Garrison  edits, 

63- 

Judson,  A.  T.,  suit  for  libel 
against  Garrison,  101. 

KANE,  J.  K.,  282. 

Kane,  T.  L.,  at  Kynders  mob, 
282. 

Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  see  Ne 
braska  Bill. 

Keith,  George,  opposes  surren 
der  of  fugitive  slaves  (1693), 
27. 

Kelley,  see  Foster,  Abby 
[KelleyJ. 

Kendall,  Amos  P.,  holds  back 
abolition  documents  in  mail, 

I3Z>  US- 
King,  Leicester,  273. 
Kingsley,  Charles,  355. 
Knapp,  Isaac,   associated  with 
Garrison  in  youth,  55  ;  editor 
Essex    Courant,    and     Free 
Press,  56 ;  partner  of  Garri 
son  in  Liberator,  82  ;    lodges 
with  Garrison,  117;  business 
troubles,  181 ;  attack  on  Gar 
rison,   237  ;    Knapp'' s  Liber 
ator,  238. 

Kossuth,  Louis,  non-committal 
as  to  slavery,  288. 

LANE  SEMINARY,  secession 
from,  125,  185,  265. 

Larcom,  Lucy,  355. 

Laurens,  Henry,  29. 

Lawrence,  Abbott,  at  anti- 
abolition  meeting,  124;  op 
posed  for  Congress  by  Garri 
son,  126. 

Lay,  Benjamin,  colonial  oppo 
nent  of  slavery,  20,  27  ;  asso 
ciated  with  Franklin,  27,  30. 


INDEX 


403 


Leavitt,  Joshua,  leaves  Coloni 
zation  Society,  97 ;  an  or 
ganizer  of  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  no;  edits 
Emancipator ;  247. 

Lee,  R.  E.,  Garrison  opposes 
gifts  to  his  college,  363. 

LeMoyne,  F.  J.,  declines  nomi 
nation  on  anti-slavery  ticket, 
191. 

Letters  on  American  Slavery, 
by  John  Rankin,  44. 

Liberator  *  the,  Boston,  cir 
cumstances  of  establishment, 
81-83 ;  irritating  character, 
83,  84 ;  measures  to  prevent 
circulation  in  the  South,  85  ; 
official  organ  New  England 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  94  ;  in 
difficulties,  97,  118,  119; 
aided  by  S.  E.  Sewall,  139  ; 
Garrison's  editorial  work  in 
terrupted,  148 ;  Knapp  sole 
publisher,  Burleigh  acting 
assistant  editor,  149 ;  aided 
by  Gerrit  Smith,  150;  sup 
ported  by  Massachusetts  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  153 ;  the 
"  Refuge  of  Oppression," 
!53»  O-  Johnson  locum 
tenens  for  Garrison,  154, 
155,  158;  attack  of  "Cler 
ical  Appeal"  on,  158-160; 
advocacy  of  non-resistance, 
178,  179;  rescued  from  dif 
ficulties,  182;  plan  to  com 
pete  with  in  Massachusetts, 
1 85 , 1 86 ;  Cradle  of  Liberty,  a 
weekly  Liberator,  Monthly 
Offering,  a  monthly  issue, 
187  ;  competition  of  Stand 
ard,  dangerous  to,  194; 
Knapp  strives  to  regain  pub 
lication,  237,  238  ;  small  cir 
culation,  248 ;  editorial  as 
sistance  of  E.  Quincy  and 
Maria  W.  Chapman,  249 ; 


increasing  deficit,  270 ;  pro 
posal  to  unite  with  Stand 
ard,  323,  340;  editorial 
assistance  of  Whipple, 
Quincy,  May,  348 ;  last  num 
ber,  349 ;  mentioned,  339, 

372. 

Liberia,  recognition  of  inde 
pendence,  322. 

Liberty  Bell,  the,  44. 

Liberty  party,  circumstances  of 
formation,  181,  191,  192; 
come-outers  oppose,  194,  239, 
245,  250,  253,  268;  progress 
of,  201,  206,  207,  270;  swal 
lowed  by  Free-Soil  party,  275. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  his  propa 
ganda  and  Garrison's,  17, 
184 ;  free-soil  ideas,  273 ; 
"house  divided,"  311;  Gar 
rison  slow  to  make  up  mind 
about,  317  ;  Garrison  respects 
but  does  not  appreciate,  320, 
321  ;  caution  in  reference  to 
emancipation,  322,  324,  325, 
327,  330;  forecasts  emanci 
pation  as  a  military  necessity, 
331 ;  radical  abolitionists  op 
pose,  and  Garrison  supports, 
336,  355  ;  renomination,  338; 
Garrison  visits,  339 ;  reelec 
tion,  340 ;  news  of  death, 

343- 

Lloyd,  A.,  maternal  grandfather 
of  W.  L.  Garrison,  47. 

Lloyd,  Frances  Maria,  mother 
of  Garrison,  see  Garrison, 
Frances  Maria  [Lloyd]. 

London  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
121. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  "  Ode  to 
Union,"  277  ;  mentioned,  97. 

Longfellow,  Samuel,  97. 

Loring,  E.  G.,  aids  Liberator, 
82;  a  founder  of  New  Eng 
land  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
92;  buys  Knapp's  share  of 


404 


INDEX 


Liberator,  237  ;  opposes  dis 
union  resolutions,  250. 

Lotteries,  condemned  by  Gar 
rison,  60. 

Lovejoy,  E.  P.,  death,  163, 
164  ;  Boston  meeting  of  pro 
test,  165,  1 66;  importance  of 
martyrdom  to  anti-slavery 
cause,  169;  Garrison's  blame 
of,  356- 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  on  Edmund 
Quincy,  168 ;  signs  call  for 
(Jhardon  Street  Convention, 
204;  "Letter  from  Boston," 
23Oj  263  ;  influence  of  Maria 
White  on,  251  ;  not  a  dis- 
unionist,  252  ;  his  anti-slavery 
papers  and  Garrison's,  252; 
view  of  Webster's  7th  of 
March  speech,  277. 

Loyson,  Hyacinthe  (Pere  Hya- 
cinthe),  355. 

Lundy,  B.,  peripatetic  reformer, 
27  ;  impressive  personality, 
36 ;  relations  with  Garrison, 
60,  65,  66,  70 ;  edits  Genius 
of  Universal  Emancipation, 
60  ;  reception  in  Boston,  62 ; 
goes  to  Hayti  with  freed 
slaves,  70  ;  denounces  Texan 
annexation,  73  ;  property  des 
troyed,  175;  memory  cele 
brated,  330. 

Lunt,  George,  anti-abolitionist, 

MS- 

Lyman,  Theodore,  Jr.,  mayor 
of  Boston,  presides  at  anti- 
abolition  meeting,  i 24  ;  at 
anti-Garrison  riot,  135. 

MACAULAY,  T.  B.,  106. 
Macaulay,  Zachary,  106. 
McDuffie,  George,  Garrison 

calls  "  Nero,"  149. 
McHenry,    Jerry,     rescued     at 

Syracuse,  286. 
Me  Kim,  J.  M.,  at   organization 


of  American  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  Hi;  Lowell's  letter  to, 
230;  opposes  disunion  reso 
lutions,  250 ;  on  Garrison's 
religious  nature,  300;  estab 
lishes  Freedmen's  Aid  Com 
mission,  348 ;  daughter  Lucy 
marries  W.  P.  Garrison,  367. 

Madison,  James,  33. 

Mahan,  Asa,  president  of  Ober 
lin,  265  ;  debates  with  Gar 
rison,  270. 

Manumission,  27,  28,  30 ;  of 
slaves  enlisted  in  Revolu 
tionary  armies,  33. 

Marcy,  \V.  L.,  Garrison  calls 
"  Domitian,"  149. 

Marshall,  Emily,  admired  by 
Garrison,  59. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  protected 
by  F.  Jackson,  126;  defends 
Channing,  144 ;  delegate  to 
World's  Convention,  197, 
198. 

Mason,  Lowell,  67. 

Massachusetts  Abolition  So 
ciety,  anti-Garrison,  189. 

Massachusetts  Abolitionist,  the, 
competes  with  Liberator, 
1 86. 

Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  149,  153,  155,  159, 
162,  185,  197,  227,  329,  336, 
346. 

Mather,  Cotton,  54. 

Mather,  Cotton  and  Increase, 
156. 

May,  Samuel,  Jr.,  raises  testi 
monial  fund  to  Garrison, 
352;  character  of  Garrison, 

379- 

May,  S.  J.,  hears  Garrison, 
79  ;  characterized,  80  ;  at  or 
ganization  of  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  ill;  per 
forms  marriage  ceremony  for 
Garrison,  117. 


INDEX 


405 


Mazzini,  Giuseppe,  353. 

Mellen,  G.  W.  F.,  at  Chardon 
Street  Convention,  204. 

Mennonites  and  slavery,  27. 

Methodist  Church,  28,  32,  180, 
229. 

Mexico,  war  with,  258;  effect 
of  on  the  North,  272. 

Michigan  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
292. 

Middlesex  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
225. 

Mifflin,  Warner,  and  wife,  early 
opponents  of  slavery,  28. 

Miller,  T.  H.,  influence  on 
Garrison,  53. 

Miner,  Charles,  and  abolition 
in  District  of  Columbia,  65. 

Missouri  Compromise,  a  slavery 
triumph,  35 ;  its  repressive 
effect  in  New  England,  221. 

Mobs  and  mob  violence,  122, 
123,  131-133;  break  up 
Crandall  school,  99-101  ; 
break  up  meeting  of  New 
York  City  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  108  ;  danger  of  violence 
to  Garrison  in  Boston,  109  ; 
Garrison  mobbed  in  Boston, 
134-138;  death  of  Lovejoy, 
Alton,  111.,  161-164,  169; 
Pennsylvania  Hall,  Philadel 
phia,  destroyed,  173;  Marl- 
borough  Chapel,  Boston, 
threatened,  175  ;  Broad  Street 
riot,  175 ;  Rynders  mob, 
278-285  ;  character  of  North 
ern  violence  to  abolitionists, 
285,  286 ;  Phillips  threatened, 
317  ;  Foster  and  Garrison  in 
western  New  York,  245 ; 
draft  riots,  332;  anti-negro 
riots,  Detroit,  332. 

Monroe,  James,  123. 

Morpeth,  Lord,  199. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  31. 

Morris,  Thomas,  265. 


Morse,  Jedediah,  31. 

Mott,  James,  religious  influence 
on  Garrison,  77. 

Mott,  Lucretia,  religious  in 
fluence  on  Garrison,  77  ;  at  or 
ganization  of  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  no;  address 
at  dedication  of  Pennsylvania 
Hall,  Phila.,  174;  on  com 
mittee  of  American  Anti-Sla 
very  Society,  193;  delegate 
to  World's  Convention,  195. 

NATIONAL  ANTI-SLAVERY  CON 
VENTION,  239,  329. 

National  Anti-Slavery  Conven 
tion  for  Independent  Voting, 
191. 

National  Anti- Slavery  Stand 
ard,  the,  194-195,  201,  234, 

323- 

National  Convention  of  Aboli 
tionists,  190. 

Na  t ion  a  I  Intelligencer,  the, 
pro-Southern  paper,  85. 

National  Philanthropist,  the, 
total  abstinence  paper,  Garri 
son  co-editor,  59. 

Neal,  John,  63. 

Nebraska  Bill,  304,  305,  308. 

NTegroes,  plantation,  22,  344 ; 
slaves  in  Massachusetts 
(1706),  25;  early  discussion 
of  capacity,  31  ;  Garrison's 
first  contact  with,  53  ;  Garri 
son  on  denial  of  education  to, 
60  ;  negro  in  Liberator  print 
ing  office,  82 ;  agitation  causes 
greater  severity  to,  87  ;  plan 
for  industrial  college  at  New 
Haven,  89  ;  anti-slavery  activ 
ity  of  free  negroes,  93,  103  ; 
industrial  college  planned, 
101;  few  at  organization  of 
American  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  1 10 ;  subscribers  to 
Liberator,  Il8 ;  black  laws  in 


406 


INDEX 


free  states,  278;    enlistment, 
330 ;  exodus  from  Mississippi 
and     Louisiana,    370,    385 ; 
present     condition    of,    373, 
385  ;  see  Freedmen  ;  Recon 
struction  ;  Slavery. 
New     England     Anti-Slavery 
Convention,    155,    176,    189, 
201,  227,  250,  337. 
New  England  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  92,  102,  1 10,  149. 
New    England  Non-Resistance 

Society,  178,  179. 
New    England   Spectator,  the, 
Clerical  Appeals  published  in, 
159 ;    advocates    a    new    or 
ganization,  162. 
New    Hampshire    Anti-Slavery 

Society,  257. 

New  Organization,  191-196. 
New    York    City   Anti-Slavery 

Society,  108,  194. 
New  York  City  Library,  285. 
New  York   Peace   Society,  con 
servative,  178. 
Newell,    Charlotte,    Garrison's 

aunt,  death,  316. 
Newhall,  P.,  52. 
Newman,  J.  H.,  on  heresiarchs, 

208. 

News  Letter,  the,  Boston,  on 
negro  slavery  in  Massachu 
setts,  25. 

Nietzsche,  Friedrich,  and  Gar 
rison,  378. 

No-government,  executive  com 
mittee  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society  opposed  to,  160;  Eng 
lish  feeling,  213 ;  charged 
against  Garrison,  214,  219. 
No-organization,  Garrison  op 
posed  to,  234. 

Non-resistance,  Garrison 
preaches,  165,  183,  214-217, 
2^4,  308,313;  and  disunion 
254 ;  Uncle  Tom  a  non-re 
sistant,  289 ;  the  draft  and 


non-resistants,  327  ;  Garri 
son's  son  not  a  non-re 
sistant,  332 ;  effect  of  war  on 
Garrison's  principles,  356. 

A'on- Resistant,  the,  179. 

Northwest  Ordinance,  men 
tioned,  43,  264. 

Northwest  Territory,  early  con 
nection  with  South,  41. 

Noyes,  J.  II.,  influence  on  Gar 
rison,  171  ;  his  doctrines,  215, 
2I°,  375- 

OBERLIN  COLLEGE,  265;  Gar 
rison  visits,  269. 

Observer,  the,  St.  Louis  and 
Alton,  163,  164. 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  Garrison 
meets,  106,  199 ;  supports 
American  anti-slavery  cause, 
108  ;  opposed  to  exclusion  of 
women  delegates,  198;  signs 
abolition  address,  287. 

Old  Organization,  191-196. 

Oneida  community,  171. 

Opie,  Amelia,  199. 

Ordinance  of  1787,  43,  264. 

Orthodox  Congregational 
Church,  see  Congregational 
Church  (Orthodox). 

Osgood,  Samuel,  154. 

Otis,  H.  G.,  Garrison  supports 
for  Congress,  59,  63 ;  response 
to  demand  for  punishment  of 
David  Walker,  73  ;  response 
to  demand  for  punishment  of 
Garrison,  85  ;  at  anti-abolition 
meeting,  131. 

Owen,  Robert,  Garrison  re 
garded  as  a  follower,  213. 

PALMER,  DANIEL,  great  grand 
father  of  Garrison,  46,  47. 

Palmer,  Mary,  paternal  grand 
mother  of  Garrison,  46. 

Parker,     Mary     S.,     president 


INDEX 


407 


Female  Anti-Slavery  Society, 

US- 
Parker,  Theodore,  at   Chardon 
Street  Convention,  204 ;  Gar 
rison's  view  of,  299 ;  and  John 
Brown,  312. 
Park  Street  Church,  Fourth  of 

July  speeches  at,  67. 
Parrish,    John,    on    slavery    in 

District  of  Columbia,  39. 
Patton,  J.  M.,  gag-rule,  181. 
Peabody,  George,  Garrison  on, 

363 

Pease,  Elizabeth,  Garrison 
meets,  199. 

Pease,  Joseph,  199. 

Peck,  J.  W.,  supports  free-soil 
in  Illinois,  42. 

Pennsylvania  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  363. 

Pennsylvania  Gazette,  adver 
tisements  of  negro  sales  in, 

30- 

Pennsylvania  Hall,  Phila.,  ded 
ication  and  destruction  of, 

*73- 

Pennsylvania  Society  for  Pro 
moting  the  Abolition  of  Sla 
very,  40. 

Perfectionism,  171,  189,  215- 
217. 

Phelps,  A.  A.,  leaves  Coloniza 
tion  Society,  97  ;  at  organiza 
tion  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  1 1 1 ;  on  W.  E.  Chan- 
ning,  142;  answers  Clerical 
Appeal,  158;  anti-Garrison- 
ian,  184,  1 86,  193,  205,  213. 

Phelps,  Elizabeth  Stuart,  355. 

Philadelphia  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  197. 

Phillips,  Ann  T.  [Greene],  wife 
of  Wendell,  delegate  to 
World's  Convention,  197. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  on  Garrison's 
importance,  44 ;  his  power  to 
irritate,  84,  1415  more  ex 


treme  than  Garrison,  94  ;  so 
cial  standing,  126;  joins 
abolitionists,  154,  163-167  ; 
moves  to  admit  women  dele 
gates  to  World's  Convention, 
197 ;  leader  in  disunion 
movement,  242,  249,  254 ; 
violence  threatened,  285, 
317 ;  public  influence  in 
creases,  328 ;  at  anti-sla 
very  love-feast,  330 ;  opposes 
dissolution  of  anti-slavery  so 
cieties,  345-347 ;  president  of 
American  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  347 ;  opposes  Lincoln, 
355  >  lay  pastor  at  abolition 
funerals,  366 ;  supports 
Greenback- Labor  party,  369; 
address  at  Garrison's  funeral, 
370;  his  eloquence,  381. 

Phonography,  303. 

Phonotypy,  362. 

Phrenology,  Garrison  examined, 
152;  Garrison  interested  in, 
301. 

Pickering,  Timothy,  Garrison 
supports,  55. 

Pierpont,  John,  67 ;  new  or- 
ganizationist  and  Sabbatarian, 
205  ;  opposes  disunion  policy, 
250. 

Pillsbury,  Parker,  extreme  Gar- 
risonian,  227  ;  Lowell's  char 
acter  of,  230,  231  ;  his  account 
of  Douglass's  Nantucket 
speech,  233  ;  opposes  Lincoln, 

Polk,  j.  K.,  256. 

Price,  Thomas,  Garrison  speaks 

in  his  chapel,  107. 
Prohibition,  360,  361. 
Prostitution,  regulation  opposed 

by  Garrison,  362. 
Public   Liberator  and  Journal 

of  the    Times,  the,  Garrison's 

prospectus  of,  77. 
Purvis,  Robert,  at  organization 


408 


INDEX 


of  American  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  in. 

QUINCY,  EDMUND,  social  stand 
ing,  126;  joins  abolitionists, 
167  ;  editor  National  Anti- 
Si  av  ery  Standard,  195; 
leader  in  disunion  movement, 
242 ;  comments  on  Garrison, 
247-250,  302. 

Quincy,  Josiah,  Jr.,  and  Boston 
mob,  136. 

RANKIN,  JOHN,  44. 

Rawle,  William,  31. 

Reconstruction,  abolitionists  and 
Lincoln's  plan,  336  ;  division 
among  abolitionists  as  to,  345- 
347 ;  Garrison  on  Johnson's 

Plan»  355- 

Recorder,  the,  Boston,  on  the 
anti-Sabbath  convention,  296. 

Reinond,  C.  IX,  negro  anti- 
slavery  lecturer,  195-199. 

Renan,  E.,  170. 

Republican  party,  and  Liberty 
party,  192  ;  Garrison  adheres 
to,  256,  357  ;  Garrison's  re 
ception  of,  309 ;  repudiates 
John  Brown,  314;  carries  out 
slavery  guarantees,  317,  318  ; 
has  no  policy  to  meet  seces 
sion,  319 ;  change  of  view 
toward  abolitionists,  329  ; 
renominates  Lincoln,  337 ; 
supports  Thirteenth  amend 
ment,  338. 

Revenue  Reform  League,  357. 

Rice,  David,  31. 

Ripley,  George,  at  Chardon 
Street  Convention,  204 ; 
founds  Brook  Farm,  225. 

Rogers,  Ezekiel,    236. 

Rogers,  N.  P.,  leaves  Coloniza 
tion  Society,  97  ;  joins  Gar- 
risonians,  126;  delegate  to 
World's  Convention,  195;  a 


no-organizationist,  224 ;  more 
violent  than  Garrison,  227  ; 
editor  Standard  and  Herald 
of  Freedom,  234 ;  excursion 
to  White  Mountains  with 
Garrison,  234-236;  excur 
sion  in  Connecticut  Valley, 
248  ;  estrangement  from  Gar 
rison,  257 ;  messages  from 
spirit  world,  301. 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  281, 

362>  377- 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  289. 

Ruggles,  David,  his  Northamp 
ton  water-cure,  274. 

Rush,  Benjamin,  29,  30. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  352. 

Rynders,  Isaiah,  breaks  up 
meeting  of  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  230,  279- 
285. 

SABBATH,  breaking  of  assailed  by 
Garrison,  60  ;  Chardon  Street 
Convention  discusses,  202- 
205  ;  Garrison's  observance 
of,  217;  convention  against 
Sunday  laws,  293-296  ;  Gar 
rison's  influence  on  current 
American  sentiment  regard 
ing.  375- 

St.  Clair,  Alanson,  anti-Garri- 
sonian,  185. 

St.  Monica  Home  for  Colored 
Women  and  Children,  351. 

Sanborn,  F.  B.,  judgment  of 
Garrison,  377. 

Sandiford,  Ralph,  20  ;  associa 
tion  with  Franklin,  27,  30. 

Schaff,  Philip,  354. 

Scott,   Dred,  effect  of  decision, 

3"- 

Seabrook,    W.    B.,   pro-slavery 

pamphleteer,  34. 
Sewall,  Samuel,  24,  26. 
Sewall,   S.    K.,  hears   Garrison, 

79 ;  devotion,  81 ;  objects  to 


INDEX 


409 


cut  of  slave  auction  in  Liber 
ator,  83  ;  a  founder  of  New 
England  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
93;  social  standing,  126;  aids 
Liberator,  139;  ceases  to  be 
a  political "  conic-outer,"  201. 

Seward,  \V.  E.,  on  the  "  irre 
pressible  conflict,"  311  ;  Gar 
rison  criticizes,  319. 

Shadrach,  fugitive  slave,  286. 

Shaw,  R.  G.,  colonel  first  negro 
regiment,  331. 

Shipley,  Thomas,  at  organiza 
tion  of  American  Anti-Sla 
very  Society,  iu. 

Short,  Moses,  Garrison's  ap 
prenticeship  to,  52. 

Simms,  Thomas,  fugitive  slave, 
remanded  from  Boston,  286. 

"  South-side  View  of  Slavery," 
156. 

Spiritualism,  Garrison  on,  300. 

Sprague,  Peleg,  speaker  at  anti- 
abolition  meeting,  131. 

Stanton,  E.  M.f  341. 

Stan  ton,  Elizabeth  [Cady], 
wife  of  H.  B.  Stanton,  185. 

Stanton,  H.  B.,  anti-Garrisonian, 
185,  1 86;  plans  for  anti-sla 
very  party,  190. 

Stewart,  Alvan,  leaves  Coloniza 
tion  Society,  96. 

Stiles,  Ezra,  early  colonization- 
ist,  30. 

Stone,  Lucy,  at  Oberlin,  270. 

Stone,  W.  L.,  editor  Commercial 
Advertiser,  107. 

Storrs,  C.  B.,  leaves  Coloniza 
tion  Society,  87. 

Story,  Joseph,  95. 

Stowe,  Harriet  [Beecher], 
Uncle  Tom's  C<ibin,  289 ; 
corresponds  with  Garrison  on 
infidelity,  300. 

Stringfellow,  B.  F.,  308. 

Stuart,  Charles,  British  aboli 
tionist,  103,  106;  visits 


America,  121;  agent  for 
American  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  152;  opposes  Old  Or 
ganization  in  England,  202. 

Stunner,  Charles,  on  Garrison's 
speeches,  260 ;  his  "  The 
True  Grandeur  of  Nations," 
360;  Garrison's  obituary  of, 
364;  oratory  of,  381;  men 
tioned,  357. 

Sumner,  \V.  G.,  on  humanita- 
rianism,  147. 

Sussex,  Duke  of,  ignores  Garri 
son,  107. 

Sutherland,  Duchess  of,  Garri 
son  meets,  199. 

Swan,  James,  29. 

Swift,  John,  mayor  of  Phila 
delphia,  175. 

Swift,  Zephaniah,  31. 

TANEY,  R.  B.,  287. 

Tappan,  Arthur  and  Lewis, 
property  attacked,  122; 
burned  in  effigy,  130;  op 
posed  to  come-outerism,  189. 

Tappan,  Arthur,  pays  Garrison's 
fine,  76;  sends  Garrison 
3i,ooo,  85;  urges  industrial 
college  for  negroes,  89 ; 
leaves  Colonization  Society, 
96  ;  protects  Garrison,  105  ;  an 
organizer  of  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  HO;  first 
president  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  115;  disap 
proves  Garrison's  violence, 
119;  leaves  Garrisonianism, 
138;  first  president  Amer 
ican  and  Foreign  Anti-Sla 
very  Society,  193 ;  reconcilia 
tion  with  Garrisonians,  330. 

Tappan,  Lewis,  at  organization 
of  American  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  in,  H2;  disapproves 
Garrison's  violence,  119; 
disapproves  relations  of  Lib- 


410 


INDEX 


erator  and  Massachusetts 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  159 ; 
disapproves  Garrison's  an 
swer  to  Clerical  Appeal,  161, 
162;  leads  informing  New 
Organization,  193. 

Tariff,  of  abominations,  36 ; 
Garrison  supports  "  American 
system,"  77,  94  ;  Garrison  a 
free  trader,  357-360. 

Taylor,  "  Father  "  E.  T.,  204. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  282. 

Texas,  Annexation  of,  early 
date  of  movement,  73,  147  ; 
recognition  of  independence, 
169  ;  imminent,  256;  grounds 
of,  258 ;  influence  upon  North 
ern  sentiment,  271. 

Thatcher,  George,  on  essential 
sinfulness  of  slavery,  35. 

Theatre,  Garrison  on  the,  2 1 8. 

Thirteenth  amendment,  338, 
340,  341,  348,  385. 

Thompson,  George,  Garrison 
meets,  106;  first  visit  to 
America,  12 1,  122,  124,  132, 
133,  135;  returns  to  Eng 
land,  134,  139;  cause  aided 
by  his  extrusion,  140 ;  irri 
tates  American  sensibility, 
140,  141  ;  wishes  to  avoid 
"  woman  question,"  198  ; 
invites  Garrison  to  visit  Eng 
land,  262;  justifies  slave  in 
surrection,  284  ;  second  visit 
to  United  States,  287,  337, 
342,  344  ;  last  meeting  with 
Garrison,  368  ;  on  Garrison's 
character,  379 ;  mentioned, 
144. 

Thomson,  Samuel,  his  medical 
theories,  275,  302. 

Tilden,  I).  R.,  debates  on  Con 
stitution  with  Garrison,  267. 

Todd,  Francis,  his  suit  for  libel, 

74-77- 
Torrey,    C.    T  ,    anti-Garrison 


abolitionist,  185;  secretary 
Massachusetts  Abolitionist 
Society,  189  ;  attacks  Garri 
son,  213;  assails  Old  Or 
ganization,  245  ;  imprison 
ment,  repentance,  256. 

Tracy,  Joseph,  anti-Garrison 
abolitionist,  184. 

Transcendentalism,  Garrison 
and,  173,  376;  a  pestilent 
heresy,  205. 

Transcript,  the,  Boston,  Gar 
rison's  anti-slavery  communi 
cation,  refused,  79. 

Trollope,  Frances  M.,  22. 

Trowbridge,  J.  T.,  354. 

Truman,  II anbury,  Buxton  & 
Co.,  brewers,  106. 

Tucker,  St.  George,  31. 

Turner,  Nat.,  insurrection  of, 
86. 

UNDERGROUND  Railroad,  the, 
265. 

Unitarian  Church,  80. 

Ursuline  Convent,  Charles- 
town,  Mass.,  destroyed,  123. 

VAN  BUREN,  MARTIN,  aboli 
tionist  sentiment  as  to  can 
didacy,  190,  194;  nominee 
of  Free- Soil  party,  27 3  ;  Gar 
rison's  feeling  toward,  274. 

Villard,  Helen  Frances  [Garri 
son],  birth,  257  ;  marries  H. 
Villard,  352;  Garrison  dies 
at  residence  of,  370. 

Villard,  Henry,  257,  352. 

WALKER,     AMASA,     Garrison 

votes  for,  126. 
Walker,      David,      author      of 

"  Walker's  Appeal,"  73,  85. 
Ward,  S.  S.,  speech  at  Rynders 

mob,  284. 
Ware,  Henry,  Jr.,   suggests  re- 


INDEX 


411 


visory  committee  for  Garri 
son,  119. 

Warner,  C.  D.,  354. 

Warren,  Joseph,  165. 

Wrashburn,  Royal,  on  early  anti- 
slavery  movement,  22. 

Washington,  George,  33. 

Wayland,  Francis,  on  Boston 
inob,  138. 

Webb,  Alfred,  «  D.  B.,"  of  the 
Nation,  200. 

Webb,  Hannah,  Garrison's  af 
fection  for,  200. 

Webb,  J.  W.,  editor  New  York 
Courier  and  Enquirer,  109. 

Webb,  R.  D.,  on  Garrison,  45, 
200,  354,  379;  mentioned, 
247,  302. 

Webster,  Daniel,  election  to 
Senate,  59,  166;  on  Coloni 
zation  Society,  95  ;  not  at 
anti-abolition  meeting,  131  ; 
his  support  of  Compromise  of 
1850,  276,  277 ;  eloquence, 
381. 

Webster,  Noah,  31. 

Webster,  Samuel,  29. 

Weld,  Angelina  [Grimke],  be 
gins  to  lecture,  157  ;  agitates 
for  woman's  rights,  160; 
married  to  T.  D.  Weld,  174. 

Weld,  T.  D.,  leaves  Coloniza 
tion  Society,  96 ;  leads  se 
cession  from  Lane  Seminary, 
125,  265;  agent  American 
Anti- Slavery  Society,  152; 
marries  Angelina  Grimke, 
174. 

Wesley,  John,  32. 

Western  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
264. 

Western  Reserve  Convention, 
190. 

Weston,  Anne  W.,  sister  of 
Maria  Weston  Chapman,  179. 

Weston,  Harvey  E.,  on  Garri 
son's  medical  notions,  302. 


Weston,  Maria,  see  Chapman, 
Maria  [Weston]. 

Whig  party,  201,  268. 

White,  Maria,  betrothed  of  J. 
R.  Lowell,  251;  on  aboli 
tionists,  251. 

White,  N.  H.,  editor  National 
Philanthropist,  59. 

White,  W.  A.,  opposes  disunion 
resolutions,  250. 

Whitefield,  George,  30,  31,  48. 

Whittier,  J.  G.,  Garrison  and, 
58 ;  urges  Clay  to  pay  Gar 
rison's  fine,  76;  at  organiza 
tion  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  1 1 1 ;  poem  to  Gar 
rison,  H2;  opposed  to  raising 
"  woman  question,"  152, 176; 
"  Ichabod "  and  Longfel 
low's  "  Ode  to  the  Union," 
277 ;  mentioned,  168. 

Wilberforce,  William,  IO2,  106, 
108. 

Williams,  Roger,  24. 

Wilmot  Proviso,  264,  276. 

Wilson,  Henry,  363,  364. 

Winslow,  Emily,  delegate  to 
World's  Convention,  197. 

Winslow,  Isaac,  backs  Garrison 
financially,  97 ;  at  organiza 
tion  of  American  Anti-Sla 
very  Society,  in. 

Winslow,  Nathan,  in. 

Winthrop,  R.  C.,  381. 

Woman's  rights,  beginnings  of 
the  agitation,  157,  158,  160; 
Garrison's  support,  171,  213; 
Garrison's  individualism  and, 
222,  364. 

Women,  aid  in  social  advance 
ment  insisted  on  by  Garrison, 
60 ;  political  agitation  dep 
recated  by  Garrison,  72 ;  at 
American  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  no;  opposition  to 
women  lecturers,  157,  366; 
the  "  woman  ,question "  in 


412 


INDEX 


anti-slavery  societies,  176, 
188,  189,  190,  192,  195,  197, 
213 ;  admitted  to  Peace  Con 
vention,  177. 

Women,  suffrage  of,  Garrison 
in  favor  of,  361,  369;  prob 
ability  of  attainment,  371, 

385- 

Woolman,  John,  20,  22,  26,  27. 

World's  Anti-Slavery  Conven 
tion,  the,  195,  197-198. 

Wright,  Elizur,  Jr.,  on  effect 
of  "  Thoughts  on  African 
Colonization,"  96 ;  an  or 
ganizer  of  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  no;  secre 
tary  for  domestic  correspond 


ence,  American  Anti-Sla 
very  Society,  115;  on  Garri 
son's  severity  to  friends,  162; 
opposed  to  Garrison's  come- 
outerism,  189. 

Wright,  Ellen,  see  Garrison, 
Ellen  [Wright]. 

Wright,  H.  C.,  preaches  non- 
resistance,  1 60  ;  on  Liberty 
party,  192;  violently  anti 
clerical,  227  ;  leader  in  dis 
union  movement,  241  ;  at 
Garrison's  sick  bed,  270 ; 
supports  Lincoln,  337 ;  Gar 
rison  at  funeral,  365  ;  spirit 
communication  from,  365. 

Wythe,  George,  31. 


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